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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 






METAPHYSICAL ESSAYS. 



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By C POST. 



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BOSTON, MASS.: 

FREEDOM PUBLISHING COMPANY. 

1895. 



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COPYRIGHTED, 1895, 

BY 

HELEN WILMANS. 

All rights reserved. 
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THE FIRST CAUSE. 



CHAPTER I. 

I will not say that we can understand the beginning 
or first cause; but evidently it is easier to understand 
that a Law, or Force, existed by which atoms were 
drawn to coherence, than to believe that the atoms 
came together without law. 

It is easier to understand, and more reasonable to 
believe, that there was a law, or force, by which the 
primordial atoms were attracted to each other, thus 
giving existence to forms, than that the atoms took 
form without law, and afterwards became the creator 
of law. Therefore it is easier to understand and more 
reasonable to suppose that the first cause of all things 
is law, or a force, inherent in atoms, than that "God" is 
a form or a person from whom all law came. 

Farther back than the law, or the creating force, 
we cannot reach with our finite understanding; but 



4 THE *TRST CAUSE. 

we can understand that the law by which atoms are 
attracted to each other exists in the very nature of 
the atom, and that it is coeval with the existence of 
the atoms. We cannot understand that atoms existed 
before the law existed; neither can we understand that 
the law existed before the atoms. The atoms and the 
law are co-existant. In other words the atoms exist, 
and it is their nature to want to come into closer con- 
tact with each other; and thus we prove the existence 
of the law, and we also see that the one function of 
the law is to attract. This simple fact will account 
for all motion and all form, which is the result of 
motion. 

What is the attracting power then ? Why it is Love 
and nothing else. The law of life is love. Love is 
the compacting, the solidifying influence whose nature 
it is to draw, and upon the drawing power of which 
every form of life or every object in life has its or- 
ganization. Force or law is impersonal; it exists 
independently of organization, though it is the one 
and only agent of organization. This law which is 
without form or personality draws together and holds 
in place all forms. 

Forms are the effect of the action of the law. They 



THE FIRST CAUSE. 5 

cannot exist without the law; it therefore follows that 
"God" did not exist prior to the law, and that he did 
not create the law. Therefore it is impossible logi- 
cally to conceive that the first cause is a person, hav- 
ing a form and the functions of individuality; and no 
sillier idea ever existed than the belief in this personal 
God and the creative power attached to him. The idea 
was born of the utmost ignorance. It came from the 
mind of an infantile race whose brain was not suf- 
ficiently developed to project a logical conception in 
relation to human growth or world growth. 

Totally absurd therefore is the proposition that God 
is a person, self existing but unchangeable, and gov- 
erning the universe by edicts as unchangeable as him- 
self. 

If God is a person it is his changeableness that 
would declare his personality. If he is a person, he 
has established laws that must be for his own guid- 
ance in the government of the universe; he must 
think, devise, act in accordance with those laws; and 
it is the very nature of thought and action to pro- 
duce change. To think means to change; for thought 
— whether we recognize the fact or not — is the force 
that everlastingly changes, constructs and recon- 



6 THE FIRST CAUSE. 

structs, tears down and builds up again, first in the 
invisible thought sphere and then in the visible. 

You who have been in the habit of thinking of God 
as having a form do not conceive of him as doing 
nothing. To think of him in this way would be 
to reduce him to the level of a graven image or an 
Egyptian idol. You do not think of his person as 
one who having put the universe in harness and in 
motion, sits down forever and simply lets the thing 
run. You pray to him to both think and act; to do 
this and to do that; to stay the plague, and turn aside 
the lightning stroke; to do a thousand things, the 
doing of which implies action on his part. 

But thought precedes action. Thought resolves and 
decides; to do a thing when one has not decided to do 
it, is to do it by accident. Does God do things by 
accident? If not, then if he acts at all, it must be by 
intention. He decides to do, and then he does. 

But before decision comes indecision. If this or 
that was done by God, not by accident, but because 
God had decided to do it, then there was a time when 
he had not decided to do it, when he was undecided 
whether he would do it or not. Is the God of your 
conception a God of indecision? 



THE FIRST CAUSE. 7 

"But," it is said, "God does not have to decide; does 
not have to think; he knew everything and ordered 
everything from the beginning, even to the prayers 
that would be offered to him, and the manner of their 
answering." But this again is reducing him to an 
automaton; self made it is true, but still an automaton, 
doing that which he himself provided at the first that 
he should do; this state of things makes him a self- 
created, self-regulating machine, acting without 
thought or responsibility or present volition of will, 
in obedience to a command to himself before he ceased 
to think. 

Or if this were not true, and if having personality 
and form, God still thought and acted, then — I repeat 
— his form must change from year to year and from 
century to century, for thought produces action and 
is action in and of itself, and it changes all things all 
the time unceasingly. 

And then again, a personal God must have limita- 
tions. Personality implies form, and form is produced 
by that which limits or holds it within certain boundary 
lines. The very moment the idea of limitlessness oc- 
curs to the mind, the idea of personality vanishes. 

But what, some may ask, is the difference, or why 



8 THE FIRST CAUSE. 

does it matter whether God or First Cause is a person 
or a force? God is God in either case. In either case 
is the power above all other powers — the creator and 
fashioner of the universe — what odds, then, whether 
we conceive this power to be possessed of a body or 
not? 

But it does make a difference. It makes the greatest 
conceivable difference. It makes the difference which 
exists between owning ourselves and being owned by 
another; the difference between master and servant 
between Life and Death. 

If God has a form and is a person, and if he made 
the law by which we exist, then are we wholly in his 
power. Him must we obey forever, and forever must 
his will be our will. We are his servants and he is our 
master, and to him must we look for pleasure and for 
pain, for reward or punishment, for life or for death. 
If God is a person, his will is supreme; our wills are 
subject; his will is free; our wills cannot be free; not 
free to question the law; not free to question God. By 
his will we exist, by his will we may die. By his will 
the law of life came; by his will a law of death may 
come. In all things are our wills subject to his will, 
and since by his permission we exist, by his command 
also may we be annihilated. 



THE FIRST CAUSE. 9 

Not so of a Law. The existence — the very fact of 
the existence of a Law by which Life first came to be, 
makes it forever impossible that death should ever be. 

For if Law is the cause of life, then death can only 
be where Law is not; and if Law is the First Cause 
death can never be; for the First Cause must be self- 
existing and imperishable, and being so, and being the 
cause of life, life once existing must always continue 
to exist, and death is forever an impossibility. 

This too: While to a personal God, a First Cause 
having personality and an individual will — a personal 
God who created the universe and man for his own 
personal glory — while to such a God man must for- 
ever bow down in worshipful obedience, towards Law 
as the first cause, man stands in a totally different re- 
lation, and may, by understanding it, make it his 
servant. 

For while man is nothing, and can do nothing out- 
side of the law, yet may he through an understanding 
of the law make its power his own; may compel the 
law — even the law of which he is the creature — to 
obey him. 

Electricity is a law or a force in Nature. In Nature, 
force and law are one; the law itself being the force 
and the force the law. 



10 THE FIRST CAUSE. 

Before men understood the law of electrical force 
they supposed it to be a god. Thunder, they said, was 
the voice of the God in anger, and the lightnings 
the breath of his nostrils with which he consumed 
his enemies; and they were the slaves and worshipers 
of this suppositious god. Man has always made a god 
of that of which he was afraid. 

When man learned that thunder and lightning are 
caused by electricity, and that electricity is a force or 
law in Nature, then fear gave place to understanding, 
and knowing the law of electricity, or so far as he 
has learned it, he commands it, and is its master in- 
stead of its slave. Instead of prostrating himself in 
fear and trembling before it as an angry God, he 
now stands calmly upright in the presence of a force 
in Nature which he can control. Instead of humbly 
craving to know the wishes of another he confidently 
expresses his own desires. Instead of asking the will 
of a god, he gives commands to the law, and the law 
obeys him. The lightnings are chained. Through 
knowing the law man has made himself master even 
of the law itself, and bids it fetch and carry as he will. 

The one is a slave, prostrate in the dust at the feet 
of his God; the other stands majestically forth and 



THE FIRST CAUSE. 11 

gives his commands to the Law, himself a god by 
virtue of his acquired knowledge and power. 

Yet the power and glory of the lightning is not less 
because man has learned that it is a force and not a 
person. On the contrary, to the perception of every 
reasoning being, is its power and goodness and glory 
magnified a thousand times by knowledge of it — by 
the knowledge that though its power is sufficient to 
rend the earth in twain, to thrust the oceans from 
their beds, the stars from their orbits, yet so gentle is 
it that a little child with chubby hand upon its mane 
may guide it where he will. 

Neither is man rendered less just or moral by his 
change in his relationship from slave to master of the 
lightnings, but the opposite. 

Every faculty of his being, every attribute of his 
nature, is enlarged and elevated and refined and im- 
proved by the change. He is not only a wiser but a 
better man, more noble, more just, more appreciative 
of good in nature and in his fellow man as master of 
the forces of nature, than he ever was or could be of a 
being whose anger the lightnings represented. 

And what is true of man and one law or force in 
nature is equally true of man and all laws, the first 
Great Law not excepted. 



12 THE FIRST CAUSE. 

Looking upon God as a person who has created the 
universe including man, for his own special benefit, 
or glory, man sees in his creator a rightful master 
whose ways he may not question, whose laws he has 
no right to meddle with, no authority to direct, no 
power to control. To such a creator man's whole 
duty is expressed in the two words — unquestioning 
obedience — which mean submission without seeking 
to know either the law, the object of the law, or the 
result likely to follow either obedience or a refusal to 
obey. 

Before the Law as first cause, before an impersonal 
instead of a personal Force, man feels his relations 
changed and himself free. Free to question, free to 
act, free to command, free to climb to any heights, 
free to prospect to any depths, free to aspire to any 
good, to hope for anything, for all things that are in 
the law, even the powers and goodness of the law 
itself. 

Yet more. As before a personal god it is man's duty 
to bow in humble obedience, in the presence of an im- 
personal force it is his duty to command. 

If God is a person then man is for his use. 

If God is an impersonal force then it exists for the 



THE FIRST CAUSE. 13 

use of the highest personal expression of itself, which 
is man. 

Rights attach to persons. Impersonalities have no 
rights. 

As between man and a personal God, God has all the 
rights and man has no rights, but only duties, the duty 
of obedience. 

As between an impersonal God or a force in Nature 
and man, man has all the rights and God has none. 

Rights attach only to beings possessed of the ability 
to desire, to experience pleasure and pain, to like and 
dislike. 

If God is a person then he has desires, likes and 
dislikes, and can know pleasure and pain, consequently 
has rights, and as the Creator of all things can owe 
no duty of obedience to any one or any thing; so man 
the Creature can have no rights with relation to his 
personal Creator but only the duty of obedience. 

But if the Creative power be an impersonal force it 
is without the ability to feel pleasure or pain, conse- 
quently has no rights, these having passed to man 
when he was endowed by the law with ability to know 
pleasure and pain; while the duty of obedience, if the 
word is longer a proper one* to use in this relation, is 



14 THE FIRST CAUSE. 

now with the law, the relations of the two being re- 
versed, leaving with man the right to command, and 
with the Law the duty of obedience. 

There is no blasphemy nor irreverence for the Crea- 
tive power in all this. It is but a logical deduction of 
the relations existing between man and the forces in 
nature by which all things — man included — exist. 
That both the premise and the reasoning are correct 
is proven by every advance which man has made in 
the understanding and control of the forces of nature 
since his advent upon the earth. 

Whoever understands the law may command it. 
Whoever understands the forces of nature may control 
nature. Do not men by knowing the law of hybridi- 
zation produce new strains of flowers ? new vegeta- 
bles? new fruits? Do they not control the lightnings 
through a knowledge of the law of electricity, and 
are not the powers of steam theirs to command through 
a knowledge of the law which makes and controls 
steam? Are not the powers of the mightiest rivers 
man's, and do not the winds fetch and carry for him? 
And when man shall have grown to a full knowledge 
of the law which holds the planets in their orbits this 
law also shall obey him, and he shall command it as 



THE FIKST CAUSE. 15 

he compels the winds and the waves and the lightnings 
to do his will now. 

The right to command is the prize which nature ever 
holds up before the eyes of her best loved children, 
men, tempting them constantly to higher knowledge, 
which means greater personal power. 

It is the premium which Nature offers as a reward 
to the courageous, the diligent,/ the hopeful, the pa- 
tient, the persevering among the sons of men. It is the 
reward of merit to those who dare most and climb 
highest, who have most faith in themselves because of 
so great faith in the possibilities of the Law; to those 
who magnify the law by proving how great men may 
become; who honor the law by earnestly seeking to 
understand it that they may command it to the up- 
building of self. These prizes are everywhere. Wher- 
ever a law in nature is hidden there also is hidden the 
prize for him who shall search out the law. In earth 
and sea and sky are the prizes concealed. The thun- 
ders tell of them; the sea raves of them; the inter- 
stellar spaces are full of them. 

The law is no niggard in the giving of rewards. 
The law exists but for the service of man. The law 
yields its power to him who most asserts his equality 



16 THE FIRST CAUSE. 

with it by striving to understand it. It rewards him, 
and him only who seeks to know and to command it. 
In this faith have I sought truth, and in this knowl- 
edge have I written. 



LIFE. 17 



LIFE. 



CHAPTER II. 

That which we understand as life in its varied forms 
6i plant and animal is but different forms of expres- 
sion of the one life — the Law. 

There is but one life, one law. Search the universe 
of worlds and we find system after system each with 
its separate planets revolving about their central sun, 
and each system but one of many similar systems re- 
volving about a common center, which center with its 
greater systems revolves in turn about a still greater 
center; until contemplating them we are lost in specu- 
lative wonderment — as they are themselves lost in 
infinitude. 

Such is the law of the Magnitudes, and the Law of 
the Minutia is the same. Every atom, every molecule, 
even the particles of inter-stellar space are subject to 
the same law; each is a planet in some system of 



18 LIFE. 

worlds with its center of revolution about which it 
continually whirls. 

The law which governs the universe of worlds and 
the universe of atoms is one and the same; it is the 
one Life in motion, the one love seeking expression; 
and all things that appear to us as wearing form are 
its manifold manifestations. 

It appears to me that the most expressive term for 
use in speaking of this universal life or law is "Energy"; 
giving it of course the scientific meaning. This uni- 
versal Life or Law, or "Energy" permeates all things, 
is in all things, is the life — the vital force of all 
things. 

Since it is impossible that anything less than the 
whole can contain the whole, it is impossible to fully 
comprehend, and difficult to find terms in which to ex- 
press our understanding of the universal Life or 
Energy; but again it appears to me that a good word 
to express our conception of its workings is the term 
"Automatic." It is of course much more than this, 
for it is self-existing. It is that which always was, 
and is indestructible. 

It is that power which is, and it is all the power 
there is. It is nature, and it is that principle in na- 



LIFE. 19 

ture which causes the acorn to germinate and the tree 
to put forth its leaves; and it is in the dead branch 
equally with the springing shoot, the opening flower 
or the ripened fruit. 

In the living tree it is working to perfect the fruit 
of that tree; in the dead branch it is just as certainly 
working to produce some other form of expression 
of itself; some vegetable or animal that shall be of a 
higher organization, and hence a fuller expression of 
itself — the one life, the universal Energy. Hence, I 
say, it works automatically. Nothing hinders, noth- 
ing delays. Nothing can interfere with its perfect 
working to the one end for which it exists — which is 
expression of itself. 

The instant that the branch ceases to receive more 
of Life, that instant, without the slightest disturbance 
to any other portion of the universal energy, without 
jar or friction anywhere in all the universe, begins as 
it were, automatically, the change to a new form of 
life, or more correctly a reorganization of old forms. 
For in fact life never leaves the branch for an instant, 
not for any conceivable or inconceivable space of time. 
If it is no longer the life of the branch, the branch 
having recognized all of life possible to that form, the 



20 LIFE. 

universal Life, intent upon giving itself, upon finding 
further and higher expressions of itself, is compelled 
by the law of its existence, the law by which, and in 
which, it is, to change from the form of the branch 
which could no longer receive or express more of it, to 
some other form or forms which can. 

If it were not to do this then Life itself would lose 
a part of itself; then Life itself might die, Life which 
is that power men call God. 

This cannot be because there is no dying; that 
which we call death being simply a change in the form 
through which life obtains expression. 

Thus life is constantly casting off old and taking on 
new forms; new in relation to the individual, or the 
species or both. What is true of the trees and plants 
in this respect is true also of animal life, including man. 

When the individual man has reached the limit of 
his ability to give expression to the universal Energy 
he dies, and the same with nations and races of men. 

It is the immutable law of Life that he who will not, 
or cannot, accept of more shall have less — for since 
life cannot cease, even for an instant to give itself, 
that form of organization which fails but for an instant 
to receive more, must perish in order that a new form 



LIFE. 21 

may take its place and by receiving life enable Life to 
express itself. 

The reverse truth of this proposition would appear 
to be, that so long as man, or any other form of organi- 
zation, continued to grow in ability to recognize life, 
life might continue to flow into and sustain that form. 
For since its sole purpose is to give itself, why should 
it refuse to give when ability to recognize exists ? In- 
deed it cannot; so long as any form of organization con- 
tinues to increase in ability to comprehend the Law, 
just so long must the law sustain that organization; 
and in proportion as any organization continues to 
grow into fuller recognition of life, just that long is 
life compelled to flow to and sustain it; until arrived at 
the point of intelligent comprehension of the law 
which is spoken of as "being at one with God" it can 
command the law; and can, by the exercise of its indi- 
vidual will, change its form to suit its individual desires, 
being no longer the servant but the master of the law. 

Whether the individual ego retains its separate and 
independent existence after the death of its visible 
form is a question for speculation. 

Since it is a different expression of the universal 
energy from that of any other ego, it would appear 



22 LIFE. 

that it might do so, especially so in the higher order 
of expression as in man, when a broader consciousness 
of both the individual and the universal life has been 
reached. 

A speculative thought purely, is that the ego of each 
individual plant or animal may unite at the death of 
its outward form with the ego of others of its own 
order of intelligence and become one and the same 
ego up to that period where it becomes sufficiently 
conscious of its abilty to command the Law, to will 
its continuance as an entirely separate and distinct 
organization — the time when it may command as well 
as obey the law. 

We cannot of course conceive of the beginning of 
the universal energy, but this does not appear to me 
to preclude us from conceiving of the beginning of a 
personal ego as expressed in man, or any of ihe lower 
orders of animals or plants. 

All the forms of life that exist are but varying ex- 
pressions of the universal Life or Energy. Each has 
its own ego, its particle of the One Energy, yet each 
has a personality of its own and an organization which 
changes with its increasing recognition of the source 
of its being, until unable to recognize (hence to re- 



LIFE. 23 

ceive) more of life, it must be reorganized through 
what we call death. 

The ego, however, may not perish with the outward 
form. There seems to be the best of reasons for be- 
lieving that it does not. But what becomes of it after 
death? Does it return to the unseen life to become one 
with another ego which has also lost what we call its 
form, and so form a new and distinct ego possessed of 
the experience and intelligence of the two, and thus be- 
come a higher and better expression of the central ego 
than when separate? Something, for lack of a better 
simile, as two chemicals unite to form a new one. 

If this is not supposable then what are we to think 
of the lower orders? 

Do they cease all existence as organized entities? 
Can an ego be annihilated; become again an unex- 
pressed part of the universal life? If so then what 
assurance have we that it may not be true of man as 
well as of the lower organizations? 

It does not appear reasonable that it can be in 
either case, since it would apparently mean loss; a 
failure on the part of nature-life to accomplish its 
work of growth in the visible sphere. It would be 
effort lost, and in the economy of the Law there can- 
not be such a thing. 



24 LIFE. 

Is it not more reasonable and logical to suppose 
that those egos which express less of the universal 
life unite at the death of the outward form as sug- 
gested, and so continue doing until, having arrived 
at the point when a comprehension of the law has 
become possible to them, there comes also the will, 
accompanied by that saving faith in the perfection 
of the law which enables them to retain their indi- 
viduality; and is not this the beginning of true self- 
hood and of immortality in the flesh ? 

I see nothing in such a supposition antagonistic to 
the accepted theory of evolution, from which stand- 
point much of the argument upon metaphysical sub- 
jects in what is called their practical application, 
appears to be discussed. On the contrary it appears 
to me to be in perfect accord with such theories of the 
advancement from the lower to the higher forms of 
physical life, and rather to add new weight to the 
evolution of such theories. 

As to the value of any or all such speculations as 
these I leave each reader to judge for himself, with the 
simple suggestion th^.t all truth of which we are pos- 
sessed was but supposition once, and that any logical 
assumption that seemingly gives us a clue to the road 



LIFE. 25 

over which we have come in our upward climb must 
be of value in our farther progress. 

Truth cannot but be beautiful, and if it appears 
not so to us, it is because of a veil over our eyes which 
prevents us from seeing clearly. 

Let us not therefore reject without investigation, 
that which gives a reasonable assurance of being truth 
because it does not harmonize with our previous con- 
ception of the beauty of truth, but rather let us seek 
a closer inspection, knowing that if it be truth indeed, 
its beauty and goodness will speedily become apparent 
to our eyes. 



26 INDIVIDUAL LIFE — UNIVERSAL ENERGY. 



INDIVIDUAL LIFE— UNIVERSAL ENERGY. 

CHAPTER III. 

Whatever may be the conclusions to which our spec- 
ulations lead us with regard to the reincarnation of 
either the lower or higher expressions of the universal 
energy, the relation of the individual to the source of 
all life remains the same. 

An arm of the sea is not the sea, but as the smaller 
body connected with the larger by a channel deep as 
the deepest soundings of the larger can never be 
emptied, so the individual ego, because of its connec- 
tion with the universal life, can never cease to exist. 

If the connection between the sea and its arm be 
closed, the smaller body will in time lose its waters, 
but only that through the process of nature they may 
return to the parent body, the sea. 

By the removal of a portion of its shore the arm 
may cease to exist as an arm and become an unindi- 



INDIVIDUAL LIFE — UNIVERSAL ENERGY. 27 

vidualized portion of the sea; an indistinguishable part 
of it; but in no case can its waters be lost or destroyed. 

May the human ego, at the death of the body, or 
through a refusal, at any period of its existence to put 
forth effort to preserve its connection with the source 
of all life, or when it shall have made the full round 
of existence necessary to complete its experience — 
may an ego once individualized as in man, from any 
cause return to the source of its begetting, lose its in- 
dividuality in, and become an indistinguishable part 
of the universal Life ? 

If, as I have ventured to assert, the sole function of 
the universal energy is to express itself, and if this 
can only be done through individualized forms, as the 
parent gives expression to its offspring, then the ab- 
sorption or reabsorption into itself of an individualized 
ego, while that ego yet continued to groiv, would appear 
to be a mistake on the part of the universal life. 

And especially would it appear a mistake if the ego 
thus absorbed was one of its higher expressions; a per- 
fect or comparatively perfected expression of itself? 

Since the universal energy contains within itself 
all that is, there can nothing be added to it by the ab- 
sorption of an individualized ego, that being but one 
expression of itself. 



28 INDIVIDUAL LIFE — UNIVERSAL ENERGY. 

The whole cannot be increased by the addition of 
its parts; and since it is through individualized egos 
that expression and recognition are obtained by the 
universal life, to have raised an individualized ego 
through manifold incarnations to that condition of 
p£ rf ectness where it is best capable both of expressing 
and recognizing the source from whence it draws its 
existence, and then to reabsorb it would appear to 
human wisdom an illogical sequence and a foolish 
thing to do. It would be the loss to the universal 
energy of that expression of itself which gave it most 
perfect recognition — the extinction of that which 
through ages and cycles of time it had given itself to 
upbuild, and at the very point where it best served the 
purpose of its upbuilding. 

Clearly there can be no destruction of the human 
ego; no reabsorption of it by the universal energy 
when once the ego has proved its ability to give ex- 
pression and recognition thereto, or so long as it 
continues to do so; to cease to love when love is 
sweetest, to cease to live when life is most full, 
most perfect, to be reabsorbed into and become an unin- 
dividualized and unexpressed portion of life when the 
beauty of individual life and expression is most clearly 



INDIVIDUAL LIFE— UNIVERSAL ENERGY. 29 

discerned does not seem consistent with what we 
know of the method of the law. 

I am pleased to be able to believe that the more in- 
telligent and thoughtful among the theosophists do 
not accept the idea that the final and supreme reward 
of those who, through obedience to the law, reach the 
highest pinnacle of knowledge and goodness are reab- 
sorbed into the universal life, but that they under- 
stand, as we do, that the state or condition of Nervana 
is that of having arrived at such perfect knowledge of 
"God," the Law, the universal Life, as brings perfect 
peace, perfect love — a condition or state where, with- 
out ceasing to advance in knowledge and hence in 
ability to give expression to the Law, our being is in 
perfect harmony with it. A condition where the indi- 
vidual ego sees so clearly its connection with the first 
cause that all fear is banished, and a feeling of peace 
which passeth our present ability to understand 
settles down upon it and envelopes it. 

It is such a perfection of the understanding as brings 
to the ego equal confidence and respect for itself and 
the source whence it came. Of the father as father 
of itself, and of itself as the begotten of its father. It 
is a perfected recognition of the greatness and good- 



30 INDIVIDUAL LIFE — UNIVERSAL ENERGY. 

ness, the omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence 
of the Law, both as master and as servant. It is the 
knowledge that in serving we are served — that while 
we obey we also command — the perfection of under- 
standing which comes where, through labor and 
through faith,, the individual ego has made itself mas- 
ter of the universal energy. 

This, and not the loss of this, not a return to an 
impersonal existence is fitting reward for the soul that 
conquers. 

The reabsorption into the universal life, of that in- 
dividualized ego which refuses to put forth effort for 
its own upbuilding by the acquisition of knowledge of 
the source of its existence, appears more reasonable, 
more in harmony with our conception of justice and 
of the Law. The contemplation of this latter propo- 
sition was indulged in by Jesus of Nazareth, and 
the parable of the talents was used as a means of im- 
pressing it upon the minds of his disciples. 

The servant who had the one talent indolently hid 
it away, refusing to put forth any effort to add to that 
which was given him. He had received a portion of 
that which commands all things. He was an expres- 
sion of the universal energy, of truth, of Law, of Life; 



INDIVIDUAL LIFE — UNIVERSAL ENERGY. 31 

but he made no effort to add to what he had. He 
garnered no truth, made no use of the energy which 
was within him; made no attempt to keep open the 
communication between himself and the sea of life 
whence he drew life. He was declared an unprofitable 
servant; and that which had been given was with- 
drawn from him. Since he would not put forth an 
effort to fit himself to receive more of life he must 
take less, take none. From him who will not accept 
more of that which the universal energy has to give, 
namely itself, shall be taken that which he hath. 

We grow by our efforts to recognize truth. "Life" 
and "growth" are nearly synonymous terms. Noth- 
ing continues long to live after it has ceased in some 
manner to grow, and to this law the human ego is no 
exception. Upon the first leaf of the statute books of 
the gods is proclamation of the death sentence to be 
executed upon all things both great and small that 
shall fail, daily and hourly, to show forth the mag- 
nificence and the munificence of the gods, and never 
yet have they granted commutation of sentence to 
any. 

When the branch of a tree no longer possesses 
enough of life to put forth new leaves in spring time, 



32 INDIVIDUAL LIFE — UNIVERSAL ENERGY. 

it dies and drops from the parent stem. When the 
tree itself ceases to put forth buds it dies, and its fibers 
become food for other growths. As the law of the 
miiiutia so is the law of the magnitudes; the law of 
life and of death to the branch, the tree and the hu- 



man ego is the same. 



At least it would appear to follow logically, since 
the purpose of the Law is to find expression for itself, 
that the same law of change, of death, or what we call 
death, would govern in the higher as in the lower ex- 
pression, and that the ego which refused through lack 
of faith, through imbibed or inherited prejudice, or 
from any cause whatever to put forth an effort to 
grow in knowledge of the truth should perish as to its 
individuality — that all that gave it value, its life, 
might return to the source of all life and thus be not 
lost. 

There is no room in the economy of nature for 
death, and that which is stagnant is dead. 

The universal life exists but to express itself, and 
is inexorable in its demands for expression. If it were 
possible. that any offshoot of itself, any of its children, 
any individualized ego, could fail to continue to re- 
ceive and express more of it, more of the truth, more 



INDIVIDUAL LIFE — UNIVERSAL ENERGY. 33 

of life, it, like the dead branch must fall, and by the 
same law, and with equal justice. And as the dead 
branch returns to the earth in which it had its roots, 
so the unfaithful ego must return whence it came and 
become again an indistinguishable part of the uni- 
versal life or law. 

That this is in accord with theories of the old mys- 
tics, of whose teachings the Bible is a very imperfect 
and therefore comparatively valueless record, is as 
easily proven from its pages as any one of the hun- 
dreds of other theories that have been satisfactorily 
argued and found acceptable to as many thousands of 
people. 

The pity of it is that the teachings of Jesus and of 
his school of metaphysical philosophers have been so 
evidently marred by the ignorance and prejudice, not 
to use harsher terms, both of their biographers and 
the translators, that nobody knows what they really 
did teach, or what demonstrated facts they had to sus- 
tain their teachings. 

When priests and teachers of the different religious 
dogmas shall have learned that truth is indeed the 
one pearl of greatest price, and shall begin in earnest 
to search for it, we may possibly arrive at some 



34 INDIVIDUAL LIFE — UNIVERSAL ENERGY. 

knowledge of what those evidently great thinkers and 
pure minds really did mean, and be the gainers thereby. 

If, then, our premise and our reasoning is correct, 
the relation of the individual ego to the universal 
energy corresponds to that of the arm of the sea, 
to the sea itself. It is a part of it and yet not it. It 
draws its existence from it, and is as indestructible in 
its essence, though not in its personality. 

As the arm of the sea may lose its existence as such 
by giving up its waters to be returned to the ocean, 
its source and life, so the individual ego may lose its 
personality, though its essence cannot be lost. 

By shutting itself off from the parent body the arm 
of the sea may lose its waters, may become stagnant 
and perish by absorption and seepage, but its waters 
will return by natural process to the ocean, the great 
reservoir of waters. Even so it would appear that the 
ego of man cutting itself off fruxii the ocean of life, 
if such a thins: were possible, might perish as a human 
ego through absorption into the source of all life. 

Open the mind to the reception of new truth and the 
truth will flow in. 

Truth, Life, the universal energy, must give itself 
in order that, by giving, it may find expression and 



INDIVIDUAL LIFE— UNIVERSAL ENERGY. 35 

recognition of itself; and wherever the passage-way to 
expression is open, there it enters even as the waters of 
the sea fill the bay and the arms of the sea. 

Shut the door to truth; put up the bars of superstition 
and fear, nail them fast with the spikes of predjuice, 
and heap about them the dogmas of a religion from 
which the soul has fled, and you have barred out the 
life receiving current of energy ; the tide from the ocean 
of life can not enter, and stagnation and death, even 
the death of the ego follows, or would follow if the 
lack of effort were total and complete. 



- x^ijfrX^gfr *^— 



36 OF MATTER, LIFE, MIND AND SPIKIT. 



OF MATTER, LIFE, MIND AND SPIRIT. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Matter, in the commonly accepted meaning of the 
word; is that alone which is visible or tangible, that 
which can be perceived by the sense of sight or touch; 
something that can be weighed or estimated. In fact 
this is about the definition which the leading lexico- 
graphers give of the word. A sufficient one for com- 
mon use doubtless, but still one that gives very little 
idea of what matter really is. 

Nor does the materialist greatly improve upon it by 
asserting that not only such objects as are tangible 
are properly classed as matter, but that matter is all 
that there is or can be proven to exist, unless he goes 
further and explains more. Such definition is simply 
the contradiction, without logical proof, of the asser- 
tion of the Christian Scientist, that there is no matter, 



OF MATTER, LIFE, MIND AND SPIRIT. 37 

but only spirit; that matter, so-called, is an illusion, 
a chimera, "the baseless fabric of a dream." 

Since the words ''matter" and "spirit" may be 
purely arbitrary terms used by different individuals or 
schools, and express their ideas or conceptions only, a 
fuller definition of their accepted meaning must be 
had before one may venture either to deny or affirm 
the correctness of the position of either he who denies 
the existence of matter, or he who denies the existence 
of spirit. To me, matter appears to be the outward ex- 
pression of the Law of the Universal Energy. 

If so, then matter is in a sense all that there is, and 
with proper interpretation of meaning the assertion 
of the materialistic school of thinkers is correct; for a 
thing and the expression of that thing can well be 
said to be the same, since it is only through expression 
that it becomes knowable. In this sense, at least, its 
expression is it. 

Matter exists wherever the Law — the Universal En- 
ergy — has given expression to itself; and since there 
is no spot or place where such expression is not made, 
there is no place where matter is not. 

What we call space is as much an expression of en- 
ergy as are the planets that have their orbits within 



38 OF MATTER, LIFE, MINT) AST!) SPIRIT. 

it; hence matter must fill space; or, to speak more 
correctly, there is in reality no space, but only matter. 

Matter exists wherever the Universal Energy has 
found expression, and unless we can discover some 
spot where energy or cause is not, we are compelled 
to recognize the presence everywhere of matter. 

Matter is omnipresent; it is everywhere, as much as 
spirit, as the Law itself. 

Not only is that matter which we commonly call 
"tangible," as being subject to the so called law of 
gravitation, but those finer (to our preceptions) ex- 
pressions of the Universal Energy, which we call 
mind and life, are equally matter. 

The fact that we cannot discern the animalcula in 
water with the naked eye does not disprove the exist- 
ence of animalcula; neither does the fact that we can- 
not perceive the atoms in a current of electricity prove 
that it is not atomed — that it is not matter. 

With a glass of sufficient magnifying power ani- 
malcula may not only be seen in numbers in a single 
drop of water, but their movements in search of food 
or pleasure may be observed, and the different organs 
of their bodies examined. What reason, then, have 
we to suppose that those elements which are more 



OF MATTER, LIFE, MIND AND SPIRIT. 39 

fluid than water, as electricity, magnetism, etc., are 
not also not only particled, but their particles the 
home of animated life? Clearly none. On the con- 
trary, the more we investigate and reason upon the 
subject the more plainly do we perceive that magni- 
tudes are unknown to the Law; that as the ocean's 
waters are but an accumulation of drops of liquid 
matter, and the mountain ranges but an assemblage 
of atoms in a more solid state, so is all life but an 
aggregation of lives, and all matter but life expressed 
in forms. 

The cells that constitute the human body and the 
body of all animals have an existence separate from, 
though united, in the body; and each globule of blood 
is a living entity, if not the home of other entities. 

The facetious individual who asserted that — 

"Fleas have other fleas to bite 'em, 

And these have other fleas, ad infinitum/ ' 

may not have been a discoverer of truth, but he was 
most certainly a promulgator of it; for so far as 
human research or reason can carry us there is no limit 
to the minuteness of animated life, hence of material 
form of matter; and reasoning upon this line we may 
well come to the position of the materialist, that 
u there is nothing outside of matter." 



40 OP MATTER, LIFE, MIND AND SPIRIT. 

We must not, however, stop here, for we have yet 
to examine and compare with what we have already- 
discovered, the assertion of the Christian Scientist who, 
instead of agreeing, appears to assert the exact oppo- 
site; that so far from there being nothing but matter, 
matter is nothing, and there is only spirit. 

As I asserted in a former essay, there is no death. 

Never for any conceivable or inconceivable space 
of time does life, active, intelligent life, or effort cease 
in any particle of matter. 

The same instant that the branch ceases to appro- 
priate life as a branch, that instant life in some other 
form succeeds it. 

The process of what is called fomentation has long 
been known to be but the springing into life and ac- 
tivity of animalcules, and is one of the common phases 
and proofs of evolutionary law. 

The necessity to the Universal Energy for expres- 
sion renders it absolutely impossible that death (which 
if it could exist would be the absence of Energy) 
should ever be. 

Matter, I repeat, is the outward expression of the 
Universal Energy, and does not and cannot exist ex- 
cept as such expression; and unless energy can die, 
there can be no death of matter. 



OF MATTER, LIFE, MIND AND SPIRIT. 41 

In their final analysis, Death and Life are one and 
the same, for they each have, and can have but the 
one signification common to both, namely, — change, 
growth, — the change from one form of life or energy 
to another form. 

Again, since the Universal Energy is universal and 
fills all things, is omnipresent, and being omnipresent 
must everywhere give expression to itself, therefore 
is matter omnipresent also; i. e., all that is is ma- 
terial. 

Mind and life are, equally with matter, expressions 
of the law, the Universal Energy. They differ from 
matter as the forces which feed the branch differ from 
the branch; as the waters of ocean or river differ from 
the ocean or river. 

As the forces which feed the branch, and which are 
drawn from the earth wherein the tree has its roots, 
are material, so is life material. 

As the waters of the ocean constitute the ocean and 
is yet water, so does life constitute matter without 
ceasing to be life. 

Water cannot exist save in the form of drops. 

The drops may be very small and we call them 
moisture. They may be larger and ascend as mist, or 



42 OF MATTER, LIFE, MIND AND SPIRIT. 

descend as rain. They may form springs, creeks, 
rivers, the ocean, but they are still water, differing 
only in their form of expression, — are water in differ- 
ent arrangement, different relations. 

In much the same way matter is life expressed in 
different ways, in different forms. 

Matter cannot come into existence except life be to 
it both father and mother; be the creative power. 

It cannot exist without life more than the ocean 
or river could be without water. 

Neither can life be, save it exist in matter, more 
than water can exist without moisture. 

Life and matter are equally expressions of the one 
Universal Energy. Their source is the same, and they 
are never separated. Life, like matter, is omnipresent. 
Life and matter are one. They cannot be separated; 
they are indivisible. 

If they differ in forms or modes of expression, you 
yet cannot take the one and leave the other, more than 
you can take the water of the river and leave the 
river, or take the ocean and leave the waters of the 
ocean. 

You cannot do so much; for if you took the water 
of the river there would still remain its former chan- 



OF MATTER, LIFE, MIND AND SPIRIT. 43 

nel; or if the water of the ocean be removed there 
will remain its bed. But you cannot take life from 
matter, neither matter from life, for both are parts of 
infinity — of the Universal Energy, and it has no 
shores, nor bed. 

It is life, the same. 

The river of life is without banks; the ocean of 
matter without a bed and without shores. These can- 
not be taken from the ocean of matter save it add to 
the river of life ; neither from the river of life except 
to place in the ocean of matter, and it is shore- 
less. There are no banks between the two. The cur- 
rent of the river of life runs only through the ocean 
of matter, and ocean and river are one. 

As the waters of ocean are a part of the ocean, and 
their currents equally a part of both, each separate 
yet all in one, so is life in matter, and mind in both, 
and all in one. 

Mind, life, matter — three in one, and that one 
spirit, the Law, the Universal Energy, the first cause. 



44 THOUGHT. 



THOUGHT. 



CHAPTEK Y. 

Thought appears in some manner to be dependent 
upon form, organization. 

So far as we have any evidence received from the 
senses it is an emanation flowing from matter, arranged 
in certain forms, its form depending upon the manner 
of the organization and the firmness of the structure. 

To state the same thing in reverse form I would say 
that matter of a certain character and firmness, ar- 
ranged in certain forms, generates thought, or at least 
becomes capable of doing so when acted upon by the 
will. 

There is nothing particularly strange or new in such 
supposition. 

Matter in the form of a crystal, whether natural or 
artificial, has long been known to exist as a force not 



THOUGHT. 45 

unlike that of the magnet in some of its effects, al- 
though unlike it in others; the crystal apparently 
possessing some but not all the properties of the mag- 
net; and these properties depend upon the manner of 
the arrangement of its particles, rather than in the 
matter of which its particles consist. 

One does not have to be a phrenologist to perceive 
that the ability to think is dependent in a measure at 
least upon the arrangement of the brain. 

Through all the animal race including man it ap- 
pears as the invariable rule that heads of a certain 
shape contain brains capable of greater power of 
thought than of any other shape; and that, though the 
power of greater thought may be shared in some slight 
degree with other portions of the body, as the medulla 
oblongata, or medula spinalis (spinal column) yet up- 
on form and manner of arrangement of that of which 
the form is composed, depends the power to evolve 
thought. 

Matter thus arranged in certain forms and possess- 
ing perhaps certain qualities constitutes a thought 
machine. Just as certain other matter arranged in 
certain forms constitutes an electric machine. A think- 
ing machine does not however necessarily evolve 



46 THOUGHT. 

thought. It is simply capable of doing so when played 
upon by the will. The will which has flowed in upon 
the ego of the individual and which it is its to use to 
the extent of its ability to comprehend its relations 
to the infinite — the universal Ego. 

We will to think. We will that thought should 
move properly; go from us. We create thought or 
evolve it by the action of the will upon the thinking 
machine, the thought battery composed of certain 
matter arranged in certain form, and possessing possi- 
bly some peculiar chemical properties in the different 
particles. Thought therefore has form, and the same 
thought will doubtless possess the same form no mat- 
ter by what thought machine it is evolved; just as the 
same note of the chromatic scale has the same sound 
no matter by whom it is struck. 

By what laws thought is governed, by what forces 
affected, or what the medium through which it makes 
its impressions upon other forces is unknown to us, 
but is not unknowable, and will sometime be known. 
That it is a fluid not altogether unlike magnetism, 
or electricity, or the force evolved by crystals is more 
than possible, is probable. It possesses the same 
power of passing through solids as is possessed by 



THOUGHT. 47 

magnetism and the force emitted by crystals. Whether 
it is at all limited by space in any degree is question- 
able. Certainly the limits of our own globe are as 
nothing to it, and in all probability its limit is only 
that of the understanding and faith of the intelligence 
and will that directs it. 

Instances of thought transference, or the impressions 
upon the brain of one person, of the thought sent forth 
by another person, are not only numerously authenti- 
cated but they are of such common occurrence that 
no one who is at all observent can fail to notice 
them in his daily intercourse with his fellows. The 
only reason they have not been observed more com- 
monly is because the possibility of their occurring has 
never been entertained by the masses of the people, or 
even admitted by the so-called scientists, until recently; 
but anyone who feels sufficient interest in the matter 
to do it, can easily prove the fact of thought trans- 
ference for himself by noticing how frequently the 
same form of thought is felt in the mind of himself 
and his companion at apparently the same moment, 
or in the one but so short a time before the other, that 
the organs of speech of the one cannot put the thought 
into words before the other brain has received it. 



48 THOUGHT. 

In such cases the thought form may have originated 
in the brain of one of the two persons present at 
the moment, and been transferred to the other, or it 
may have been a thought form emitted by a brain a 
thousand miles distant, and have reached the two 
brains at the same instant. 

We are unquestionably surrounded by thought 
forms by the thousand. We run against them daily 
and hourly and momentarily. When the brain is 
awake to such, they leave their impression upon our 
mental perception. At other times they leave no im- 
pression at all, or only such as is left by the thousands 
of sounds (sound forms) that constantly reach our 
ears, but not our conscious selves. 

That we are influenced by the thoughts of others in 
a degree is unquestionable. The only question is to 
what degree? Doubtless the ability to receive im- 
pressions is capable of cultivation; but we must believe 
in the possibility before such cultivation can be had; 
we do not attempt a thing, the possibility of doing 
which, has never occurred to us. 

But thought may do this. Thought does do this; 
it may reach the unconscious mind, may reach the 
mind of another without that other being conscious 



THOUGHT. 49 

of it; without that other recognizing it; and may draw 
a picture of itself, leave an impression of itself which 
will affect the future actions of that other though he 
be not aware of it; though indeed it do not show forth 
at once, or for days or weeks. 

We sleep, and waking have no remembrance of 
having dreamed; days, possibly weeks afterwards there 
suddenly comes to us the recollection of what seems 
to have been a dream dreamed days and weeks before. 
Possibly we dreamed it at the time we now think we 
did. Possibly it was a thought form impressed upon 
some portion of our thought machine of which, not 
even our sleeping faculties took note at the time, but 
which is suddenly ground out as it were by the ma- 
chine because of lack of other thought forms to run 
on; or because that portion of the brain upon which 
the impression was made has just now been called into 
action for the first time since the impression was made 
upon it. 

We know very little of the law governing thought 
transference, but we know enough to give rise to a 
goodly bit of speculation through which knowledge 
is sure to come; and also to suggest the thought that 
he who would be free from all guilt of wrong done to 



50 THOUGHT. 

others, must not think wrong thoughts, and that those 
who would help to purify the world must send forth 
pure thoughts only. 

Recognizing the fact that thought has form and 
goes forth with the power to impress itself upon some 
person or thing, one can readily understand and accept 
(in its true significance) the saying of one of old that 
not our acts only but our thoughts are recorded in the 
book of judgment of the infinite, and that we must 
be judged by them. 

That thought has immense power over the body, no 
one will deny. 

Will is an impulse of the Universal Energy. It is 
an attribute of the first great cause. Directed by the 
individualized expression of itself — man — it aids in 
the creation of thought and gives it aim. It gives to 
thought such form as the thought chooses to claim. 
It may carry the balm of healing love or the poison 
of hate upon its wings. 

This is not only a logical conclusion from the 
premises, but a fact demonstrated in thousands of 
individual cases, as well as in those of general applica- 
tion, of which latter there is none more clearly appar- 
ent than in the differing effect of differing thought of 



THOUGHT. 51 

the purity and impurity of the sexes in their mutual 
relations. 

The old old idea that woman is impure in this rela- 
tion even when protected by the license of the church 
in marriage, and that for the impurity involved in 
giving birth to a new life she must be subjected to a 
ceremony of purification, this idea increasing in force 
and intensity regarding her relations outside of mar- 
riage, the teaching that the thought or desire is im- 
pure in her, while less so or not at all in man, has had 
its natural and inevitable results in the weak or un- 
healthy condition of three women out of every four in 
every country where such thought has obtained; while 
in those countries where the race, being savage, has 
thought no difference in the law of purity between the 
sexes, women have escaped disease, as have practically 
the male portion of all communities whether savage or 
civilized. 

Other evidence is to be found in the increase of 
disease in about the same ratio as physicians and pa- 
tent medecine advertisements; both being reminders 
to the people to think diseased thoughts or thoughts 
of disease, which thoughts take effect in the outer or 
visible matter towards which they are directed in the 



52 THOUGHT. 

human body; as witness again the number of physi- 
cians who, making a specialty of any one form of 
disease, themselves become the prey of that disease; 
thus showing forth in their bodies the thoughts upon 
which they so continually dwell. 

It was by knowledge of the creative power of 
thought, of the law by which thought finds expression 
in outward form, that Jesus healed; and by this he 
promised that those who believe should do greater 
works than he had done. 

Evidently Jesus expected that with the spread of a 
knowledge of the truths which he taught, the thought 
atmosphere would become clearer, and the number of 
thought forms of disease and death become less nu- 
merous and less powerful, while thoughts of the true 
and good would become more so; and so in conse- 
quence his followers would be able more easily to 
demonstrate the truth of his teachings. Unfortu- 
nately the people failed to understand; the priests and 
the Pharisees poured forth too great a volume of 
poisonous thoughts, of impure thoughts, of wrongly 
formed thoughts, and the thought atmosphere became 
thick and confusing, and the people could not under- 
stand. Out of the confusion of thoughts sprang 



THOUGHT. 53 

hundreds of religious creeds that have blessed or 
cursed the race for centuries. 

But forever is the truth stronger than error. Slowly 
but surely the truth makes itself felt and heard. For 
truth, unlike error, is immortal. The truth, like the 
infinite first cause, cannot die. Men died, nations 
perished, races became extinct or were lost by assimi- 
lation with other races, but still the truth in obedience 
to the law of its being, itself at once the law and its 
expression, continued giving forth renewed expressions 
of itself, until at last a race capable of understanding 
is arising; the old and false is perishing, and the new 
old truth becomes perceptible to the minds of men. 

I say capable of understanding, as in its relation 
to thought, human capacity does not necessarily in- 
clude or imply the doing. If now as of old men close 
their hearts and refuse to receive the light, then will 
the truth not be made known to them, and they too 
shall perish in their sins. (Ignorance) 

For there is no compulsion in the matter. Men can 
accept or reject as they choose. The orthodox people 
are correct in saying that "God does not force anyone 
to believe. " If only they had an enlightened idea of 
what and who God is, they would have a great many 



54 THOUGHT. 

truths of value to unfold to the people; but they so 
persistently hold to a misunderstanding, and to a 
system of maligning and destroying all who seek to 
understand, that the truths which they have are as a 
light under a measure. They are of no good to them- 
selves or to the world. 

In spite of them and their poor cramped ways, and 
the distorted, deformed and decrepit thought forms 
which they pour out upon the race in floods incessantly, 
there is yet a hope for them and for all; aye a sure hope 
of freedom to mankind in the certainty that truth is 
immortal and must survive and that all mankind shall 
know her; shall know her because, like her, they are 
expressions of the Infinite. 

I said that thought was evolved from a thought 
machine, and that the machine was composed of 
matter in certain form and relation etc. 

None need argue from this that man is not immortal 
or that the spirit, the intelligence or the will dies out 
of the body. 

If there is a spirit it also has a body, and if it be an 
intelligent spirit it has a thinking machine and can 
think and will and act. If a spirit can do none of 
these things, or if it cannot do all of them, what is it 



THOUGHT. 55 

better than a rock or a bucket of water? And if it 
can do these things or any of them, then it has brains 
and a thinking machine. 

Electricity can no more be seen than spirit; but elec- 
tricity is conceived to be matter; a very subtle fluid, 
but still a fluid, therefore matter. 

Magnetism has been proven, so say good authorities, 
to possess ponderability and weight, and to give color 
to water, perceptible to highly sensitive persons. 

All things that are, are matter. All things that are, 
are mind, spirit. 

The difference is one of different proportion, and of 
powers dependent upon the arrangement of the par- 
ticles or the motion one upon another. Of this we 
may feel assured; and assured of it we may carry for- 
ward our investigations with some feeling of security, 
since at the least our feet are standing on solid ground. 



■ >+ *&&8& 9 * 



56 OF THE WILL. 



OF THE WILL. 



CHAPTEK VI. 

If there be friction between two objects there is re- 
sulting a current of electricity. 

Electricity is not actually created by friction, it is 
only set free; made, as it were, alive, awakened, as 
from sleep. 

If, when friction occurs, the objects between which 
the friction takes place have connection with the 
earth, either direct or through other objects capable of 
becoming conductors of electricity, no effect of the 
electricity set free or awakened will be apparent. But 
if the objects between which the friction is generated 
be insulated, as with glass, which is a non-conductor 
of electricity, then the electricity awakened by the 
friction will remain in the objects insulated as stored 
energy, or will pass but slowly through the medium 
of the atmosphere to other objects, and to the earth. 



OF THE WILL. 57 

By the friction of mind, or spirit, upon matter 
(which is to say by the play of energy upon form) 
Will is called into activity, awakened, set free. 

I do not know that this illustration will make clear 
to the mind of the reader that which is in my mind, 
but I can think of no illustration more likely to do so. 

If the object, the person or thing, through which 
the Will is set free be not insulated; that is if it be 
not sufficiently individualized, thus, as in the case of 
electricity, there is no apparent manifestation of wilL 

By being individualized, I mean a perception within 
oneself of a consciousness of individuality; such a per- 
ception of its separateness from the whole as enables 
the individual Ego to think of itself as "I." 

Arrived at this point the individual Ego becomes a 
storage battery for Will, as the insulated object for 
electricity. 

Will is not created by the play of Energy upon 
form, any more than electricity is created by friction. 
Like electricity, Will is a force pervading all things. 
It envelopes and permeates the rock equally with the 
growing plant, the plant equally with the animal, the 
animal the same as man. 

But the rock has no consciousness of its individu- 



58 OF THE WILL. 

ality, no conscious insulation from the whole. Energy 
plays upon the rock and Will is awakened, but the 
rock has no power to store it within itself. The rock 
cannot say "I," "My," and the Will set free by the 
friction of Energy within the rock diffuses itself 
again and sleeps in the body of the Whole, of which 
the rock is to itself an indistinguishable part. 

The plant is a little more insulated than the rock. 
It recognizes its own individuality in some slight de- 
gree, and it retains enough of Will to enable it to push 
its roots downward into the earth where they contend 
with other roots for food; and to push its stem upward 
into the light and air. It even stores enough of Will 
power or force to enable it to reproduce itself in its 
seed, but only that. The Ego of the vegetable form 
says "I" but very faintly. 

Man has a clearer conception of his individuality 
than animal or plant or rock; hence is a more perfect 
store house for Will; but he has not understood his 
relation to the source whence Will comes; has not 
perceived his connection with the Universal Will; the 
immeasurable, inexhaustible fountain of Will; and so 
has supposed that his supply was limited, that his store 
house being small could contain but little, and that 
once exhausted it could not be refilled. 



OF THE WILL. 59 

When men arrive at Understanding and know that 
Will is as universal as Law, and free as the play of 
Energy upon what we call matter, then will they be- 
gin to understand how great may be their exercise of 
Will; how powerful they may be; how like unto the 
gods in might. 

Will is not Energy, but it is wherever Energy is. 
Being the result of the play of Energy upon form and 
both form and Energy being omnipresent, Will must 
be omnipresent also. 

Will is present in Energy as force in water. 

If water be in a state of quiescence, force is not 
apparent. But if water be in motion as running down 
an inclined plain its force may be made clearly appar- 
ent in the turning of machinery. 

The force of the water may even be made to direct 
the course of the water; yet will the water have lost 
nothing; its force is exactly the same as before, and, 
placed in the same relation to the same or another 
machine will exhibit exactly the same force forever. 

As the force of the water is not the water, so Will 
is not Energy; but as force is awakened by the passage 
of the water down the inclined plane, so is Will by the 
passage of Energy through form. 



60 OF THE WILL. 

Place a ram in the current of running water and it 
will utilize the force of the water to direct the current 
of the water; so also if the form through which En- 
ergy plays be a Will Machine, if it be so individualized 
as to be able to recognize its own powers, or to the ex- 
tent that it recognizes its rightful authority, it may 
dictate to Energy that form of expression it shall take. 

Will is the corralled soul of the Infinite Life moving 
within the consciousness of the finite; the voice of the 
universal Ego speaking through the Ego of the indi- 
vidual — the father through the son. 

Man's ability to command Will and through it, all 
things else, is limited only by his lack of f aitl: in him- 
self and his ignorance of his true relation to the First 
Cause. 

Man cannot possibly become the Infinite, but in 
this alone are his possibilities limited. 

The arm of the sea can never become the sea, but its 
tides rise to the same heights as those of its parent sea, 
and the force hidden in their waters is the same. 

Man's relation to the Infinite is that of the arm of 
the sea to the sea; all of the waters that the arm can con- 
tain flow into it; the powers of the tides of the ocean are 
its powers. And it could utilize them all if it knew how. 



OF THE WILL. 61 

The flow of Will awakened by the play of Energy 
upon form differs from the tides of ocean in this, that 
there is no ebb; the flow of Will is constant, steady, 
eternal; and in proportion as men become insulated, in 
proportion as they recognize themselves as expressions 
of the Infinite, the Universal Energy, the sole desire 
of which is for expression, which exists only that it 
may give itself, in proportion as men recognize the 
truth of their connection with the source of all power 
and all life and all energy, do they command that 
power. Command it through a knowledge of it, and 
through obedience to it. 

For being themselves the creatures of the Infinite, 
the expression of it, they do but obey while command- 
ing; even as the force which is in the water obeys the 
water while being so exerted as to change the current 
of the stream. 

Conscious of his individuality and of his relationship 
to the Universal Life, man becomes as one with it. 
Through him it receives conscious recognition; through 
it he receives power. Its Will becomes his Will, and 
father and son are one; of one mind. 

Thus does the Universal Oneness, u God," speak through 
the human Ego, man, finding expression again through 



62 OF THE WILL. 

that which it has already expressed, and adding in- 
creased recognition of its own power and glory while 
endowing man (its own highest expression of itself), 
with the powers of rulership over all things. 

All things under Him, and to the Son the rulership. 



'OQi^er^ 1 



OF MATTER. 63 



OF MATTER. 



CHAPTER YII. 

I have said of matter as generally recognized, that 
it consists of those things which are taken cognizance 
of by the senses, as having form, color, ponderability; 
things we can touch and taste and handle; things we 
can weigh and measure. 

It is such matter that I now purpose to consider, 
and I say of it that either it is not — as we had thought — 
an obstacle to the passage of other and similar matter, 
or that there is a law by which it can be dematerialized, 
made volatile, destroyed as matter, and rematerialized 
again, rendered dense, and given the same shape and 
qualities in all respects as before, and this without 
the aid of any mechanical contrivances. 

Either case supposes the existence of a law of which 
we know nothing further than the certainty of its 



64 OF MATTER. 

existence; and even the possibility of the existence of 
such a law will, of course, be denied and scoffed at by 
most people. Yet it does exist, and we shall yet know 
and command it. Its operation has been witnessed by 
many; both among the scientific and the ignorant. 

The cases in which I have myself witnessed the 
operation of the law, made most clearly and unmis- 
takably manifest, are two. I give them here, utterly 
indifferent to the sneers of that class of persons who 
prefer always to be the last rather than the first to 
recognize a truth, and who think that if a certain thing 
had been, their great grand parents would have known 
it. 

I make no pretense of understanding the law gov- 
erning in these cases; I only know the facts; knowing 
the facts I know the law exists by which the facts 
became facts, and I give them with the same object 
in view with which I have written this series of 
speculative essays — namely the hope of setting others 
to theorising, observing and investigating, to the end 
that the race may come more fully into a knowledge 
of the law of being. 

The first instance that I desire to mention is the 
repeated materialization, (I know of no better word 



OF MATTER. 65 

for the expression of the fact) the materialization or 
forming, or creating, of a piece of slate pencil on the 
■end of the finger of a person in a trance. 

I do not now recall the name of this person; the 
instance is of a date some years back; but I remember 
all the details of the matter perfectly, as I wrote them 
up for a paper with which I was at the time connected. 

The person was what is called a "trance medium," 
and the case occurred in the parlor of a reputable citi- 
zen of one of our northern cities. 

I have seen many trance mediums; a few people at 
least in trances who were not mediums, and consider 
myself fairly capable of judging whether a supposed 
condition of trance is really such or not. 

For the purpose in hand, however, it can make no 
especial difference whether this person was in a state 
of trance or not. I make the statement that this oc- 
currence was by a person in what is commonly 
called u a trance," or obsessed condition; the muscles 
did not become rigid, or intelligence leave or appear to 
be sleeping in the person, but a complete change in 
the facial appearance took place; perspiration poured 
from the face, and the voice changed from a natural 
to a deeply gutteral tone. 



66 OF MATTER. 

My position with relation to that of the medium 
was directly in front; he sitting on a chair, I kneeling 
on the carpet within easy hand reach of his hand, 
which was thoroughly washed and wiped on a towel 
supplied by the lady of the house, and the hand care- 
fully examined by myself, holding it in my hand and 
not afterwards touching any other portion of the per- 
son or clothing of the medium, or any other object, 
until the materialization of the pencil upon the end of 
the index finger had repeatedly occurred, and been con- 
sumed in writing upon a slate, as carefully washed and 
examined as was the hand. The pencil kept renewing 
itself; or rather as one piece of the pencil was 
used up it was replaced by another piece, which 
actually materialized under our most scrutinizing gaze 
as we looked at the end of the medium's finger, where 
it appeared to adhere as if it were a natural growth. 
One of these pieces of pencil I removed from his finger 
after watching it form there; and I had it in my 
possession for months, frequently showing it to my 
acquaintances. 

The other case was quite different, and may perhaps 
be thought more convincing, though the law in both 
cases must have been the same. The medium in this 



OF MATTER. 67 

case was a young man in my own employ as a printer 
at the case. He was remarkable in no particular as a 
man or a printer. Of a character rather too easily in- 
fluenced by others he was companionable with what- 
ever class of persons happened to be among his asso- 
ciates in the composing room, and did his work and 
lived the life of other printers. He exercised his 
mediumistic power at the instance of any friend in 
whom he had confidence, that he believed would not 
make sport of him. I think he finally became a pub- 
lic medium, but do not know his present address. 
Many demonstrations unaccountable by any known 
law of physics occurred at seances given at the request 
of friends; but the one I wish particularly to mention 
is this: Sitting in a room lighted by a lamp sufficiently 
for reading or other ordinary occupations, sitting 
between two other people each holding one of his 
hands, and with a shawl thrown over their limbs and 
brought up to their necks, an iron ring would be lifted 
from the floor between them and placed upon the 
medium's arm. 

This could only occur by the dematerialization and 
rematerializing of the iron, or by passing it through 
the flesh and bones of the arm as through ether. 



68 OF MATTER. 

I have repeatedly stood by the side of the trio of 
whom this medium was one, have seen the motion of 
the shawl caused by the ring being raised to the side 
of the arm at the shoulder, and watched it slide down 
the arm to the hand beneath the light covering of the 
shawl; and have — after the removal of the shawl, and 
the examination of the ring as it encircled the arm 
at the wrist — the hand of the medium being all the 
time clasped by that of the other sitters, and the re- 
placing of the shawl — seen the movement of the 
ring under the shawl reversed, and heard the fall of 
the ring upon the carpet or floor beneath. 

This in one instance was repeated quite a number of 
times with a hub band from an old-fashioned wagon 
picked up on the road, and taken to the medium by a 
skeptic who could not possibly believe the occurrence 
to be other than a trick. 

The medium in this instance was not entranced, 
though at other times he was subject to, or capable of, 
becoming so; and the persons sitting with him were 
like myself, people interested as investigators, and not 
always the same persons; different persons being se- 
lected for the test on different occasions. 

In all cases the position of the hands of all of the 



OF MATTER. 69 

sitters could be plainly discerned beneath the light 
shawl covering them, and it would have been impossi- 
ble for them to move or even unclasp hands without 
communicating the movement to the shawl sufficiently 
to be noticeable, much less could either of the three 
have reached to the floor and lifted the ring without 
being detected in the act. Besides which I repeatedly 
stood, as I have before stated, by the side of the sitters, 
and sufficiently close to see with distinctness the 
movement of the ring beneath the covering as it 
slippped over or through the arm at the shoulder, and 
slid down the arm to the wrist. 

The conclusion which I draw from these and other 
similar demonstrated facts is this; not that matter so- 
called does not exist; not that we are living a dream 
simply; but that matter is of a character to be instantly 
de-formed, disorganized, etherized, and again given 
form and density through some law which we call 
"occult" simply because we do not understand it. 

Whether in the cases I have cited as coming under 
my own observation, the formation or etherization of 
matter was produced by an intelligence out of the 
body, a spirit, or whether it was effected through the 
willing of the medium and rendered possible by cer- 



70 OF MATTER. 

tain conditions, magnetic or otherwise, growing out of 
the peculiar condition of the medium, or of the persons 
assembled, or of both, I do not pretend to say; for I 
have not fully satisfied myself regarding it. I can 
conceive it possible that the medium, having perfect 
faith that a certain occurrence would take place, might 
be in a condition — because of his faith — to exercise a 
power of will sufficient to produce the expected effect, 
and even to do this in ignorance of how it was done. 

The act of willing, as I havg previously stated, does 
not consist in an obstinate assertion that a certain 
thing shall be, and which is usually accompanied by, 
and really consists principally in, muscular tension, 
(as exhibited in the setting of the teeth together, the 
compression of the lips, and a more or less rigid appear- 
ance of the whole body) but in an intelligent ordering 
of a result, based upon a perfect faith in our right and 
our ability to command it to take place. 

The one is the concentration of Will, a positive force 
in the individual; the other — the sending forth of Will 
to perform a mission. 

If we are to accept the statements contained in the 
Bible as being true, and we may do so in so far as 
they are sustained by sound logic, or consonant with 



OF MATTER. 71 

known possibilities; if we are to accept the Bible as 
evidence Jesus changed the wine into water, caused 
those who were born blind to see, and new flesh to 
instantly fill the cancerous sores of the lepers; and he 
declared plainly that others should do these and greater 
things, as indeed others have done. 

Cases of instantaneous healing, through Mental or 
Will treatment are constantly occurring, and have 
constantly occurred ever since the race existed, or so 
far back as we have any knowledge touching upon 
these matters. 

Old ladies, and sometimes young ones, and men, 
have had what they called u the gift" of healing, and 
could stop the flow of blood, remove the pain of a 
burn, or dismiss a fever by — as they supposed — the 
repetition of some form of words often of a religious 
character, as a command in the name of Christ; in 
others without any reference to any deity whatever. 
And, in as much as the form used was different in 
many cases, and with different persons, it is evident 
that the particular phraseology of the language used 
had nothing to do with it, but that it was an unen- 
lightened exercise of Will made effective by a perfect 
faith. 



72 OF MATTEK. 

A similar case would be that of persons possessed of 
peculiar or unusual magnetic powers resulting in the 
production of phenomena commonly attributed to 
spirits; the unconscious willing being made effective 
in a degree by the perfection of faith. 

The reader will not understand that I assert that 
such is the cause of the phenomena referred to; I 
only suggest the reasonableness, the possibility of the 
production of such phenomena, basing my argument 
upon the facts of other phenomena as the healing by 
ignorant persons through apparently the same law. 

But whether the phenomena is the result of an un- 
enlightened exercise of the will made effective through 
faith, or by a power possessed by disembodied spirits, 
is of no special consequence at this time; the fact re- 
mains the same; and the fact is, that what we call 
matter is subject to a law through which it may be 
organized or disorganized, formed into shape or ether- 
ized without the aid of mechanical appliances. 

If this can be done by an unintelligent application 
of the will, it can be done much more effectively by 
an enlightened will. If it can be done by the ignor- 
ant through faith, blind except to the evidences of 
the senses, it can be better done through a faith rest- 



' OF MATTER. 73 

ing upon understanding. And if it can be done by 
intelligences out of the body it can be done by intelli- 
gences in the body, when we shall have acquired a 
knowledge of the law through which it is done. 

If any are inclined to assert that it is unreasonable 
to suppose that intelligences in the body can become 
possesssd of the power or knowledge of those out of 
the body, I answer, that granting that the phenomena 
referred to is the work of spirits, it appears to me as 
much more reasonable that they should be endeavor- 
ing thereby to excite those in the body to the acqui- 
sition of similar powers through a searching out of 
the law by which it is done, than that they should 
simply be putting their own powers upon exhibition 
for the less worthy purpose of showing what they 
can do. Besides which, we have the production of 
the same class of phenomena by those still in the 
body, as instanced in the many cases of healing. 

Again, lest I be misunderstood; I am not arguing 
against the existence of spiritualistic phenomena; I 
only assert that the power of an intelligence dis- 
embodied of the mortal form can only be greater than 
that of the intelligence embodied, by whatever ex- 
perience or knowledge the disembodied has acquired 



74 OF MATTEK. 

more than the other; and that as all law is knowable, 
and as the lower is forever subject to the higher, mat- 
ter must be and is subject to manipulation by forces 
generated by the will and the mental faculties of man, 
provided he acts with an understanding of the law 
governing in the case. 

All things are governed by law. Whatever an 
angel or an archangel can do, that, man can do when 
he shall have learned the law of doing. 

Science and the schools are doing much to give en- 
couragement to those who hold that matter is right- 
fully subject to the powers of the mind and of will. 

It is being taught in our highest temples of learn- 
ing that all matter is not only particled, but that the 
particles in all matter obey the same law of revolu- 
tion as do the planets; that they are arranged in sys- 
tems and are in constant revolution in obedience to 
the law of attraction as are the planets; and that 
such a thing as an absolutely solid body does not ex- 
ist anywhere in the universe of worlds. 

Accepting this theory as true, then in order to 
change the relations of the particles of matter to each 
other there has to be but the introduction of a new 
force. The force may be sufficiently strong only to 



OF MATTER. 75 

weaken the power of attraction which each of the 
atoms has for the other atoms, or it may be strong 
enough to cause their total disorganization, to cause 
them to separate so far from each other that the 
power which they possessed in our sight becomes dis- 
solved and lost, to be reformed when the new or out- 
side force is withdrawn. 

Electricity is either a current of matter, or it is a 
current in matter. 

Considered as a current in matter, it probably con- 
sists in the instantaneous reversal, in some way not 
intelligible to us, of the poles of the particles of which 
matter is constituted. How this can be, and electricity 
itself yet be not matter, is quite as hard to understand 
as how — being matter — it can yet be sent thousands 
of miles in a second; sent even without wires to con- 
duct it, across land and sea, as is now asserted by the 
ablest electricians, and made to register the will of 
him who directs it to the recognition of another, miles 
upon miles away. 

Such things, demonstrated before our eyes, compel 
us to recognize matter as in a way differing from what 
we had supposed it to be, and may well be accepted as 
an evidence of the existence of other and yet more 



76 OF MATTER. 

subtle forces through which matter may be made still 
more obedient to the intelligence and will of man, un- 
til matter and space shall cease to be obstacles to the 
transmission of thought. 

Indeed, the more we study and investigate the more 
are we forced to the conclusion that all matter is but 
the outward expression of our own mental concep- 
tions; that matter is but energy set in motion; and 
that as all thought, all expression of will, however 
feeble, is yet a putting forth of energy; and as 
thoughts like the musical notes are possessed of form, 
that all matter, so called, is the creature of — not the 
imagination in its commonly accepted meaning — but 
of thought and will; that man has indeed and in 
fact created his own surroundings, has given to mat- 
ter its form, shaping it out of the eternal energy, and 
that he can — through understanding — reshape it into 
any form he likes. 

This statement or theory which to some may, and 
doubtless will appear both foolish and blasphemous, 
has no such appearance to me. 

On the contrary, it appears to me to be sustained 
both by the fact of what is commonly called "phe- 
nomena," and by logic having such well authenticated 
phenomena for its base. 



OF MATTER. 77 

I see nothing unreasonable in supposing man to be 
the fashioner of things as they at present exist; while 
to attribute them to an intelligence possessed of all 
power and wisdom would seem rather an imputation 
upon such a being's moral and intellectual character. 



■■ O^ . Q g» gVg" 



78 UNDERSTANDING, FAITH, DESIRE. 



UNDERSTANDING, FAITH, DESIRE. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

I am not an advocate of a blind faith, but faith 
founded upon evidence and clung to with the tenacity 
with which a man lost at sea, and in the darkness, 
clings to the plank which is alone between him and 
the depths — such a faith is necessary in whomsoever 
would possess understanding. 

For understanding is the reward of an intelligent 
faith honestly maintained. That is not faith in God 
which clings to old traditions and teachings, without 
having honestly, and without prejudice, sought dili- 
gently to know the truth. Such, I say, is not faith in 
God, but faith in the priests, faith in the translators, 
and in the interpreters of those traditions. Such faith 
will save no one, will bring no one within the inner 
courts of the Temple of Life where u God," the Law, 



UNDERSTANDING, FAITH, DESIRE. 79 

the great First Cause, speaks face to face with the 
Egos of men. On the contrary such blind faith ex- 
cludes, and must forever exclude, from the inner court. 

But a faith founded upon such knowledge of the 
Infinite as can be had by diligently and honestly seek- 
ing knowledge without prejudice, or prejudging, (judg- 
ing without evidence); such a faith honestly clung 
to, although there come moments when the road by 
which we first reached our faith may not seem clear 
behind us; faith founded upon the knowledge that all 
came from good, and hence all must be good; faith in 
the eternal unswerving goodness of good, and in its 
omnipresence; faith in one's self as an expression of 
that good, and in one's consequent relation to it — such 
a faith is worthy of being rewarded, and will not fail 
to receive its reward in understanding. 

For good, the father, the illimitable first cause of all 
things, forever seeks to declare itself to its children, 
and he who listens with open heart to receive shall 
hear the still small voice declaring wisdom unto it. 

Will is an emanation of the Infinite creative power, 
and thought the unfolding of knowledge under the 
direction of the will; but understanding comes of 
listening to the voice of the source of all wisdom, of 



80 UNDERSTANDING, FAITH, DESIRE. 

that Ego of the universe with which there is neither 
beginning nor ending of days; which is and was and 
ever will be all that is both knowledge and under- 
standing. 

He who would be wise must look within, for there, 
diid there only, will each find the fountain of water 
whose connection is with the source of waters. 

And who is there will look within if he have not 
faith that he shall find? Who will look within who 
does not believe himself to be an expression of the all 
good? Who will obey the prompting of the still 
small voice, who does not believe it to be the voice of 
the Infinite Life? 

Conscience — men tell us — is a matter of education. 
True, but educated of whom? Why, of the priests 
and the makers of statutory law. 

Show me a man whose conscience is educated by the 
inner voice, who has sent his conscience to school to 
his inner self, and I will show you a man upright in 
all his dealings with his fellow men; a lover of his 
race, and one having knowledge and an understanding 
exceeding that of any priest taught man as far as the 
sun exceeds the earth in brightness. 

Reading may make a fall man, but reading alone 



UNDERSTANDING, FAITH, DESIRE. 81 

will never make a wise one. Reading the thoughts 
and ideas of another may be a help, will be a help to 
one wise enough to understand the ideas he acquires 
as helps; but only he will be truly wise, only he will 
have understanding, who, when he has read goes aside, 
and having pondered that which he has read, opens 
then his heart to understanding, and with faith awaits 
its coming; waits with faith in himself and in that of 
which he is an expression; faith in the wisdom and 
goodness of universal Being, and in himself as en- 
dowed with ability to command a further expression 
of that goodness and that wisdom. 

Faith to command. As his faith is so shall it be 
unto him. 

Faith in the omnipotence, the omniscience, omni- 
presence of good, and of all the term implies. 

Faith in himself as willing to accept and treasure 
the law and to live the law, therefore to command it. 
For whosoever would give, shall receive. He who 
obeys shall command the law. 

For the law exists but to give expression to itself, 
and as by faith in, and obedience to, the law cometh 
understanding of the law, so by understanding comes 
the right and the ability to command. 



82 UNDERSTANDING, FAITH, DESIRE. 

Desire is the impelling force in the universal mind, 
as in the individual Ego. It is the same in both, and 
in both it prompts to action. The individual received 
it from the universal, and in proportion as the indi- 
vidual becomes insulated, or conscious of a separate 
(though not discerned) existence, does desire manifest 
itself. 

The rock is but slightly insulated; it has very little 
conscious individuality, and has correspondingly little 
desire. So far as its manifestations are observable it 
has but the one desire, to rest; to retain its connection 
with, and indivisibility from the whole. 

The vegetable growths have more; the lower animal 
forms still more, and man most of all. Take from 
man all desire and he would become as the rock, and 
speedily return to the earth and to an indistinguish- 
able part of the whole. 

Desire is the instinct which leads the way until ex- 
perience has brought knowledge and the ability to 
reason; and following after knowledge comes wisdom 
and understanding. 

The child desires nourishment, searches for and finds 
it. It desires the moon as a toy to play with, reaches 
for it and finds it beyond its grasp; or it is impressed 



UNDERSTANDING, FAITH, DESIKE. 83 

with the beauty of the flame and is burned in its ef- 
fort to possess itself of it. In either case it acquires 
experience, knowledge, and is prompted to search fur- 
ther and learn more. Out of its desire to know why 
the fire burned him he searches for the source of heat 
and light. Because he desired the moon he invents 
telescopes with which to bring it nearer that he may 
examine it and learn of it, and in both cases, as in all 
others, he is brought into a fuller knowledge of his 
relation to First Cause. Desire is the germ whence 
springs action; knowledge is its fruit. 

If the fruit be bitter to the taste that does not prove 
it evil. It only proves that the way to wisdom is 
rough and mountainous, and that he who would reach 
the goal must be steadfast, firm in his faith in the 
goodness of Infinite Being. 

Neither was there any sin in desiring that which 
when eaten proved to be bitter to the taste. 

The child that burned its hand by placing it in the 
flame, the effects upon itself of which it did not un- 
derstand, did not sin. The desire which prompted the 
act on the part of the child was good; the fire itself 
was not evil; neither was any sin committed. 

Neither is there sin in the mistaken methods in 



84 UNDERSTANDING, FAITH, DESIRE. 

which older children, men and women, seek for good. 

Acting like the child in ignorance they learn wis- 
dom by the pain which results from ignorance, and 
through suffering gain knowledge. 

If the effect of an action extended no farther than 
to the life of the body, then indeed might men argue 
that final judgment followed close upon the death of 
the body; but as the effect of every act of the indi- 
vidual must leave an impression upon the Ego, which 
must remain with it as an experience until the end of 
its existence, it cannot in fairness be judged until both 
time and eternity shall have ended, and the effect of 
the experience thus be finally known. 

What men have ignorantly called sin is but the 
natural and rightful mistakes of the human Ego in 
its search for a knowledge of the infinite. Natural, 
because mistakes cannot but result where ignorance 
is, and rightful because prompted by desire which is 
the impelling force back of all action; and as action is 
necessary to progress, that which impels to action can- 
not but be good. 

It was the failure to understand this that suggested 
the idea of a God moved by anger to wreak vengeance 
upon the creatures of his own begetting. 



UNDERSTANDING, FAITH, DESIRE. 85 

If any will follow such premise to its logical se- 
quence he cannot fail of perceiving that if it is a sin 
to make a mistake in the search for happiness or for 
good, then "God" himself is as much a sinner as any 
of his mistaken creatures; for if the mistaken act of 
the creature in his search for happiness be fit cause 
for anger — which is not happiness but the opposite — 
then it was a mistake on the part of "God" to make a 
being capable of making a mistake; and the proof lies 
in the supposed fact that "God" was angry; hence was 
a sufferer through his own act. 

Out of this false idea of sin and an angry "God" 
that visits vengeance upon his creatures has grown 
the revengeful spirit in man, and the long train of 
consequent sufferings. 

Had men known "God" as the impersonal First 
Cause, essentially good because it is good to be; good 
in action because good in essence, and because to 
create is good; the life of the universe from which 
all life came — had men understood this, they would 
not have taken revenge upon their fellows for wrongs 
done them; they would not have whipped and scourged 
and burned and slain their fellow men for "God's" 
sake, but instead would have sought to lift them up 



86 UNDERSTANDING, FAITH, DESIRE. 

out of darkness into light, out of ignorance into 
knowledge. Had men understood this our whole sys- 
tem of jurisprudence had been different; the rack and 
the torture chamber with all its instruments of horror 
had never been; then had men not been burned at the 
stake for opinion's sake, or women hanged as witches; 
neither would prisons for the punishment of criminals 
have existed as to-day, and in all former ages since men 
first conceived the idea of a God of vengeance, a jealous 
God and one subject to fits of anger; but instead there 
had been places where perchance any who were violent 
might be detained, but where in love they were in- 
structed in wisdom's way, instead of in hatred and in 
anger made the subject of revenge by society. 

It was a fearful mistake, the mistake that men made 
in their conception of God; and fearfully has the race 
of men suffered because of it; but it was not a sin and 
like the child who suffered for its ignorance and learned 
wisdom from placing its hand in the flame so will men 
learn, are learning that mistake in their conception of 
First Cause. 

Desire in itself is good, always good, and it is a mis- 
take on the part of society to attempt to restrain the 
action of any of its members where the act affects only 



UNDERSTANDING, FAITH, DESIRE. 87 

the actor; each soul has the right to the experience to 
be gained by its mistakes. 

Only when the individual becomes dangerous to so- 
ciety by his acts may society rightfully deprive him 
of his liberty to express his desires in acts; and then 
its right to do so is limited to such restriction as will 
prevent injury to itself or its members. It possesses 
no right to punish; and the idea of punishment should 
be eliminated from our minds, and the word expunged 
from our vocabulary. 



c^T9^e^f^9^r^-» 



88 GOD AND THE DEVIL, OR GOOD AND EVIL. 



GOD AND THE DEVIL, OR GOOD AND EVIL. 



CHAPTER IX. 

A belief in some power greater than, and outside of 
themselves, is universal among men. The highly civil- 
ized, the ignorant and the savage alike recognize the 
existence of a First Cause, the effects of which are 
clearly apparent to their senses, but the location of 
which they cannot fix, and the purposes of which they 
do not understand. 

They know that they themselves exist; they see about 
them the various objects in nature; but how or why 
they came into existence they do not know, and of 
most, it may truthfully be said, they have never earnestly 
sought to know. 

Themselves, they have been accustomed to look upon 
as the creatures of a First Great Cause; creatures be- 
gotten or called into existence for some purpose which 



GOD AND THE DEVIL, OR GOOD AND EVIL. 89 

they could not understand if they tried, or which, per- 
haps, it was not intended by their creator that they 
should know; so they have been content without seek- 
ing to know, and have rested upon some half formed 
belief that the power that called them into existence 
would attend to any further necessary business and 
supply them with such information regarding them- 
selves and the laws governing their own lives and the 
life of the universe as was proper for them to learn. 

Being themselves possessed of form, and regard- 
ing themselves as created beings, they conceive the 
power which created them to possess form also; and 
as form carries with it the idea of place the imag- 
ination was called upon to assist in fixing upon an 
abiding place, a location, a home, for this First Cause, 
and so far succeeded as to give it a name carrying with 
it the impression of form and place, though the locality 
of the place could not be fixed upon. 

The name given to First Cause, and to the place of 
its abiding, differs among different people as their 
manner of speech differs. 

To the native American Indian the cause of all 
things is simply the Great Spirit, and His abiding 
place the Happy Hunting Grounds. By English speak- 



90 GOD AND THE DEYIL, OR GOOD AND EVIL. 

ing people the First Cause is called God, and his location, 
heaven or the heavens; but to the minds of both the 
savage and the civilized man admission to this spot, 
wherever it may prove to be, is impossible to man ex- 
cept he approach it through the door of death. 

But if men have been unable to locate heaven fur- 
ther than to give it a name, they have also been un- 
able to agree as to what the joys of heaven consist in. 

To the followers of Mahomet, to be admitted to 
heaven is to enter upon an eternity of sensual pleasures. 
To the native Indian it is to be engaged forever in 
hunting and fishing, without fear of suffering from 
hunger or thirst. To more civilized men sensual 
pleasures, or those to be found in the chase and 
slaughter of wild animals, appear insufficient to satisfy 
their high demands, and they have conceived happiness 
to be attainable in other ways. Man's reverance for 
authority, the result of generations of obedience to the 
laws of society and to those who rule society, has be- 
gotten or kept alive in him the idea that this First 
Great Cause, this power to which he owes his existence 
and to which in imagination he has given a form and 
an abiding place — that this power which he has named 
God desires not only obedience, but that kind of sub- 



GOD AND THE DEYIL, OR GOOD AND EVIL. 91 

servieney and worship which has been found pleasing 
to earthly kings; and Christians have peopled heaven 
with the spirits of the dead who are to spend an eternity 
of ages in singing the praises of heaven's king, and 
in all conceivable ways and words declaring their own 
unworthiness and extolling the greatness and power 
and glory of him whom they worship. 

It is true that during recent years there has crept 
into the minds of some of the people the idea that as 
man is possessed of other faculties than that of rever- 
ence, some other occupation than that of worship may 
be desirable during a portion of eternity, and they have 
ventured to suggest that a part of the endless ages 
may be spent in the doing of good; but in the main 
the entire human family may be safely included in 
the two classes; those who expect to spend an eternity 
of years in savage sports and sensual pleasures, and 
those who expect to spend it in the worship and glori- 
fication of a being not unlike themselves in form whom 
they call God. 

In every age of the world, however, there have been 
a few to whom it has been given to know the truth. 
To know that "God" is without form save as the universe 
of worlds has form, and that there is no personality 



92 GOD AND THE DEVIL, OR GOOD AND EVIL. 

who desires that men should prostrate themselves be- 
fore him or belittle themselves, thinking thus to glorify 
him. They have learned, too, that heaven is not a 
locality, but a condition, and that its distance from 
men is not measured by miles or by furlongs but by 
the ability of the minds of men to recognize the true 
law of being. 

That the race of men have not known the truth is 
not the fault of the truth, or of the Law of being. The 
Law has always existed and has always knocked at the 
door of the understandings of men seeking entrance; 
has always waited, ready to flow in whenever the bar- 
riers which prevented were taken down. 

As the waters of the ocean surrounding a continent 
fill every crack and cranny along its shores, so truth 
flows in upon the brains of men wherever there is a 
crack in their ignorance, or the rocks of their super- 
stition are broken down. 

As the walls of a dungeon bar out the rays of the 
sun, so does the ignorance of men shut out the truth, 
which, if permitted to enter, would wash clean the 
brain and illumine the minds of men until they should 
know Law as it is, and themselves as they are. 

Not once only but many times have men been born 



GOD AND THE DEVIL, OR GOOD AND EVIL. 93 

into the world so pure of heart and so strong of pur- 
pose that they have opened the door of their understand- 
ing, and truth has flooded their beings, and they have 
truly known u God"; have known him as the impersonal 
Law of being. 

The world has called these illumined beings Saviours 
or Christs, and such indeed they were to all who under- 
stood and accepted their teachings. But always their 
followers have been few. By the many have they been 
crucified. 

Yet has the truth proclaimed by them compelled 
some slight recognition from the many, but so im- 
perfectly have they understood the truth that they 
have quarrelled among themselves over its meaning, 
and have builded a half thousand different religious 
sects upon as many different interpretations of it, each 
far from the other and farther yet from the truth. 

Each of these many sects possesses some particles 
of the truth, sufficient to keep it alive for a time, just 
as a bit of moisture seeping through a dam may nourish 
a tuft of coarse grass or a bit of moss at its foot; but 
they have failed miserably in grasping the whole truth, 
else had the world been flooded with it and the race of 
men ere this had been redeemed. 



94 GOD AND THE DEVIL, OR GOOD AND EVIL. 

For such failure, however, man is not to blame. 
Neither is the Law. 

Had man been wise; had a knowledge of all truth 
been born with him, there had remained no truth hidden 
for him to search out. As he was not born with a 
knowledge of truth, but in ignorance of it, he has no 
way of acquiring it but by searching, and his ignorance, 
even of the way in which to search, cannot be charged 
against him as a sin or a crime. Ignorance was with 
him at his birth and for his birth mark man is not re- 
sponsible. 

He has forever striven with his ignorance and sought 
to overcome it. From the first moment of his life man 
has struggled towards the light; often to seemingly 
little purpose, always by devious and round-about 
paths; often lost in the fogs and mists of wrong 
thinking; often going back for a time over ground 
already bearing the marks of his own torn and bleed- 
ing feet, but always looking, always longing for the 
light of truth and for the joy and peace which some- 
things tells him is to be found only in its possession. 

And all the time truth was about him — was at his 
side; above, below, within him. 

For truth is everywhere. 



GOD AND THE DEVIL, OR GOOD AND EVIL. 95 

Man is blind, and in his blindness being unable to see 
the unerring workings of the Law he made the mistake 
of thinking he was in a place where no Law existed. 

Did men but realize that the Law is everywhere and 
always present they would not fail to open the doors 
of their heeirts that this Truth might enter and illumi- 
nate their being and cause them to be one with It. 

The sun may be shining never so brightly, but to 
the man who lies with closed eyes because he thinks 
it yet night, the sun might as well not be shining. 

The Law might as well not exist as to exist to him 
who will not seek to learn the harmony of its action. 

I know, of course, that those who call themselves 
Christians profess to believe that God (the Law) is 
omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent which means 
that He is everywhere present at all times, and 
that he possesses all power and all wisdom; but their 
belief is not sufficiently strong to make this seem 
an actuality to them, and they do not therefore act upon 
or reason from it. 

They farther discredit their belief that God ( the Law ) , 
is everywhere present at all times by asserting the ex- 
istence of a devil with at least temporary power, nearly 
or quite equal to that of "God," whose authority he 



96 GOD A1SD THE DEYIL, OR GOOD AND EVIL. 

disputes; and that this devil, if not actually omnipresent 
also, will certainly appear instantly on invitation. 

Now it is evident that where "God" is, the devil can- 
not be. The two cannot occupy the same place at the 
same time, and either we must cease to believe in the 
omnipresence of ¥t God" or we must deny in toto the 
-existence of the devil. For if "God" is everywhere 
there is no place left for the devil to be in, and if the 
devil is somewhere then there is a place where u God" 
is not. 

Let us not cease to believe in the omnipresence of 
God (the Law) but rather deny the devil (evil) out of 
existence. 

Such a course is safest to most of us and altogether 
the most satisfactory, and it cannot be very hard to do 
now that the revisers of the Testament have abolished 
hell. They have done their duty, now let us do ours. 
With the devil and hell out of the way the greatest 
obstacle in the way of knowing the Law will have been 
removed, and the way for truth to enter our minds will 
be made plain. 

Do you remember what Jesus said of truth? 

He said, u The truth shall make you free." To be 
free is the first step in the direction of light. 



GOD AND THE DEVIL, OR GOOD AND EVIL. 97 

No man can serve two masters, and to fear is to serve. 

Whoso is afraid of the devil has the devil for master, 
and cannot serve "God" with his whole heart and mind 
and strength. 

Let us then kill the devil and be free to serve u God." 

It is not a difficult thing to do, to kill the devil. He 
has no existence except in the imagination of men. 

Being, in their ignorance, unable to account for 
things which appeared to be the opposite of good men 
imagined that there must be a principle of evil as well 
as a principle of good; and as they could not well un- 
derstand how a principle or power that was without 
form could act, they conceived that the principle of 
evil, which they imagined to exist must have form, so 
they give it a form and called it a devil. 

Do you see the connection between the words evil 
and devil? 

Evil is understood to refer to a principle, or an effect, 
opposed to, or the opposite of good. When men in 
imagination gave to the supposed principle of evil a 
bodily form they changed the form of the word ex- 
pressing the principle of evil so as to distinguish in 
speech between the principle and the person, and by 
adding a letter made of evil — devil. 

So also of the word good. 



98 GOD AND THE DEVIL, OR GOOD AND EVIL. 

Good signifies everything which attaches to the 
meaning of the word "God" except bodily form. The 
word "God," then, is a contraction of the word good 
and came into use, probably, when men in their ignor- 
ance conceived that the principle or law of Good was 
embodied in a form and had a location or place, thus 
in their imagination making space or room for the 
devil. Or perhaps his belief in a devil first argued to 
man the necessity of giving form to "God. 1 ' Having 
conceived that the devil existed, man must, to be log- 
ical, conceive that there was somewhere a place where 
he existed; and having reasoned thus far the next 
logical step in the arrangement was that u God" was 
also limited both as to locality and to power, and so to 
"God" he assigned one corner of the universe (the 
upper) while the devil took the other, or lower corner. 

And with this suppositious devil came a thousand 
resulting miseries. 

For do you know what fear does? 

Fear u makes cowards of us all" and I know of noth- 
ing of less value to the world than a coward. 

Fear does more than make cowards of us. It causes 
sickness and deformity; it breeds fevers; it opens the 
door to epidemics, and feeds them when they come. 
Yea, it kills. 



GOD AXD THE DEVIL, OR GOOD AXD EVIL. 

It kills the body and paralyzes the hearts and brains 
and souls of men. It is a thing to be hated of all men 
and women who desire health and strength and beauty 
and happiness and long life, or who desire to know the 
truth and to live it. 

Remove all fear from out the brains of the race of 
men, and one half of all the sickness and sorrow in the 
world will depart that same hour. Give in place of 
fear a perfect faith in Good, together with an under- 
standing of the law, and the other half will follow, 
and men will be at peace — at one with the Law and 
will live in the body forever — or until by the power 
and goodness of Good they are transformed as it is as- 
serted in the Bible shall be in the last day. 

Let us then kill the devil. Let us bury him so deep 
beneath the sods of conviction that he will never find 
a resurrection or cause us to fear again. 

Who began the creation? Who was before the 
world was. or man? 

Was it the devil? Was it a principle, or power, of 
evil ? 

No. It was the principle or law, of Good. The Law 
was at the beginning. Before the world was, the Law 
was. 



100 GOD AND THE DEVIL, OR GOOD AND EVIL. 

This is the Bible account and it is fully sustained by 
logic. 

Good or "God" must have begun the creation from 
the simple reason that it is good to create. 

The power, the desire, the will to create — the act of 
creating is good — and not evil. 

By creating I mean the calling into existence; the 
bringing of form out of chaos; the organizing of dis- 
organized elements; the creating as of a world — this I 
say is good and proves that the creating power was 
good. 

Before the creation of the world then, Good was, and 
Good only, and Good created. 

And when Good had created there then was Good 
and that which Good had created and only these, and 
both the creator and the created were good; and from 
good can not evil spring; hence evil as an active living 
principle never had an existence and can not have; 
hence cannot have a form; hence there can be no devil 
either now or at any future time. 

Do you still ask whence came evil into the world? 

It is born of the imagination, and it exists in no 
other place. 

You look about you and you see a thousand things 
which you pronounce evils. 



GOD AND THE DEVIL, OR GOOD AKD EVIL. 101 

Poverty and sickness and old age and all that these 
mean to men and women — these are upon every side 
of us — these are the sights upon which we daily look. 

And are not these evils? 

And crime, is not that evil? 

Again I say these are only seeming evils. They are 
not so in very truth. Good is everywhere and always 
present. Evil is nowhere and has no existence. These 
things seem to be because men are ignorant of the law 
of Good, and because of their disbelief in Good. Evils 
are born of man's imagination. They are images float- 
ing before the eyes in the darkness. They are ghosts 
born of ignorance and fear, and are only seen by those 
who have forgotten or who have not yet learned that 
men cannot by any possibility separate themselves 
from Good. 

Because man fears these things they appear to be. 
Because he has not faith in the good they rise up be- 
fore him. 

Evil comes to man because he believes in evil, gave 
it a form and bowed down his heart in fear before it — 
bowed down before the devil, an idol — or image — of 
his own creation. 

I Bay that these things we call evils are the creatures 



102 GOD AND THE DEVIL, OR GOOD AND EVIL. 

of our own imaginings. There is positively no living, 
or active principle of evil anywhere. Not in heaven, 
nor on earth, neither in the waters under the earth is 
there any power which can either do evil or beget it. 

Evil has no existence. It did not exist at the begin- 
ning of creation; it was not created; it does not exist. 
That it appears to do so is due solely to our false reason- 
ing and to our failure to preceive the presence of good. 

What darkness is to the natural eye that evil is to 
the eye of the understanding. We shut ourselves up 
in a dungeon and say, "The sun gives forth no light. 1 ' 
We close our natural eyes and say, "The world is a 
blank and void, I see nothing.'' We close our eyes 
and say, u The sun has gone down; darkness has come." 

Just so do we close the eyes of our understanding 
and say, "Good is departed; evil has come." 

We wall ourselves in with the rocks of ignorance 
and the mortar of superstition and say, U I cannot see 
the Good. It is not here/' 

Not long since a man begged for a crust and lodging 
at a farm house not far from New York City, and died 
a few hours later of cold by the road side. Yet he 
owned one of the finest hotels in New York, arid was 
possessed of a million of dollars in his own name. He 



GOD AND THE DEVIL, OR GOOD AND EVIL. 103 

thought himself poor and a beggar, but he was insane. 
His poverty was of his imagination only. 

I do declare to you now that your poverty is no more 
real than was this man's, and that if you could believe 
as firmly in good as you do in evil — if you could but 
recognize the presence and power of Good to its fullest, 
your poverty would flee from you as the frost from the 
heat of the sun, and you would be rich, not alone in 
spiritual things, but in all things needed for bodily 
comfort. 

"Seek first the kingdom of heaven and all these 
things shall be added unto you." 

Who of you believe the Bible to be inspired of Him 
whom you worship as "God" can believe, while yet you 
are in poverty, that you have understood or worshiped 
aright? 

I tell you that Jesus knew the law and understood 
its workings, and he meant what he said; meant ex- 
actly that and nothing more or less. 

He meant that if you could understand and realize 
that Good, or "God," is forever and always around and 
about and within you; and that you are therefore living 
within the kingdom of "God" and not in the kingdom 
of the devil; in the kingdom or realm of Good and 



104 GOD AND THE DEVIL, OR GOOD AND EVIL. 

not of evil, that all things which are desirable for the 
body ; health, beauty, wealth, — "all these things" should 
come to you, or be added to you. 

He meant you to understand that it is the law of 
nature, of Good, that to those who understand the law,, 
and cling to it, and believe in it, and refuse to believe 
in evil, Good alone can come; and I tell you that the 
law is perfect, and its workings are perfect, and there 
is no possibility that evil of any kind, or any semblance 
of evil, can come to him who believes in the law with 
his whole heart, and his whole mind, and his whole 
strength. 

It could not be the law of Good if it were not per- 
fect, and it could not be perfect if it ever failed in its 
workings, even in the slightest degree. 

Obey the law of Good perfectly, in perfect faith, and 
your reward is certain. Nothing can interfere to pre- 
vent it. 

No one else can so violate the law as to rob me of 
that which is mine under the law, if I fail not in my 
obedience to it. Though I stand alone, or though you 
stand alone, and though the whole world come up 
against us and seek to slay us and to rob us of that 
which is ours, yet shall we not be harmed in so much 



GOD AXD THE DEVIL, OR GOOD AND EVIL. 105 

as one hair of our heads, neither shall anything which 
is ours be taken from us. 

I say this with a full knowledge and understanding 
of the laws of what men call political economy, the 
effect of which, upon the production and distribution 
of wealth, has been my study for years. 

The law of Good is the first law, and it is sufficient 
to all who reside wholly within the kingdom of Good. 
The root of the law of Good and all its branches and 
its fruit are within the kingdom of Good, this kingdom 
into which all may enter who deny evil, or eschew it, 
and believe in and cling to Good alone. 

The law of economics has its root in the kingdom of 
Good, but its branches reach over into the realm of 
seeming evil, where men live, and the fruit is formed 
there and eaten there. Obedience to the law of true 
economics would enable men to gather far better fruit 
than is now gathered from it; and eating such, men 
would be prompted to seek the spot whence the root 
springs, and so be led within the kingdom of Good, 
where is the perfect fruit of the perfect law of Good, 
and where no other law is needed and no other drops 
its fruit within the kingdom. 

To him who believes alike in Good and in evil, Good 
and evil alike come. 



106 GOD AND THE DEYIL, OR GOOD AND EVIL. 

Poverty is to those who believe in poverty; sickness 
to those who believe in sickness; death to those who 
belie ve in death; a devil and hell to those who believe 
in a devil. 

Aye, and riches, and health, and hope, and heaven 
to those who believe in the Good alone, and who know 
the law and obey it. 



C* M * G* *L&>&^* 



INFLUENCE OF FEAR UPON INDIVIDUALS. 107 



INFLUENCE OF FEAR UPON INDIVIDUALS. 



CHAPTER X. 

The effects of sudden fright upon the physical and 
mental powers of the individual are well known to all 
physicians, and in fact to nearly everybody. Indeed, 
nearly everyone has experienced something of these 
effects in his own person. 

Who is there who has not at some time, in some 
lonely spot, in a dim light, and among deepening 
shadows started and turned pale at sight of some hid- 
eous object, half fact and half fancy, which seemed 
suddenly to start up before him ? 

Only an instant, perhaps, did the fear sway him, and 
was then indignantly put down by a dominating will 
power and an intelligent recognition of the surround- 
ings and the facts. 

Or if not from such cause, then a fright from sud- 
deL'y finding himself in imminent danger from a 



108 INFLUENCE OF FEAR UPON INDIVIDUALS. 

maddened animal, a frightened horse, the threatened 
overturning of a vehicle, or one of a hundred other 
possible accidents. Who, I ask, has not felt the sud- 
den thrill of fear, from some such cause, and noted its 
effects. The quick rush of blood to the heart, the in- 
creased action of that organ in its effort to return the 
blood through its natural channels to the extremeties, 
the feelings of suffocation or choking which followed, 
the confusion of ideas, the mental effort necessary to 
overcome, and the bodily weakness which followed 
when the danger was safely past? 

With many people a fright produces fainting. The 
blood ceases to circulate, or nearly so. The muscles 
relax, the vital organs refuse to perform their functions, 
mental faculties appear to be numbed and the person 
falls to the ground. Death by fear is by no means an 
unknown thing, while cases where the hair has turned 
white in a few hours from the same cause are frequently 
asserted and commonly accepted as true — are, I think, 
well authenticated. 

Now if such are the results of a sudden or severe 
fright upon the individual; if fear weakens the muscles, 
confuses the mental faculties and disarranges the whole 
physical and mental man, what must be — what is the 
effect upon the race, upon the mental, moral and phys- 



INFLUENCE OF FEAR UPON INDIVIDUALS. 109 

ical health of the race — of thousands of years of fear- 
ing; of creeds based on fear; of teachings which fill 
the minds of the people from tenderest infancy to the 
infancy of old age with fear in its every shape and 
form? 

Is it not reasonable to suppose that the physical 
powers of men have been lessened and their bodies 
rendered less symmetrical, beautiful andstrong by these 
ages of fearing? 

It certainly is. 

And not only that, but their mental faculties and 
moral natures have suffered equally with their physical 
natures. 

Fear of evil has produced the effect of evil. 

Fear of the devil has actually done for the race all 
that an actual devil could have done had he had an 
existence. It has tortured the minds of millions as 
nothing else could have tortured them — tortured them 
until they have grown permanently deformed and mis- 
shapen — until deformity has become to them as symme- 
try and they have ceased to struggle for a knowledge 
of truth. 

The mind, like the body, if held in an unnatural 
position for long accommodates itself to its environ- 
ments. Kindly nature, when she can no longer hope 



110 INFLUENCE OF FEAR UPON INDIVIDUALS. 

thereby to correct, sweetly stills the warning pain by 
fitting the twisted limb and the warped mind to the 
stocks which hold and deform it. 

The hell of Dante and of Luther have been the hells 
of all just in proportion as they have believed in them, 
and their tortured minds, misshapen, have finally 
hardened in the form into which they were drawn by 
the racking hand of Fear. 

And only when Fear shall be removed by knowledge 
of the Truth can Love with softening touch straighten 
their crooked minds and limbs and make them whole. 

Through all the ages man has been the slave of fear. 
Can the mind and soul of a slave grow and expand 
naturally ? 

Since time began for man fear has been man's mas- 
ter. That man is what he is in spite of the tor- 
turings of fear, in spite of his belief in evil, is 
proof sufficient of his divine origin. What he would 
now be had he known from the birth of the race 
that in no possible way can he separate himself from 
the living fountain of perpetual Good, and that fear, 
therefore, is wholly without cause for being, only those 
intelligences can know, who, having conquered fear, 
have so come into a fuller knowledge of the Law and 
are therefore at one with It. 



INFLUENCE OF FEAR UPON INDIVIDUALS. Ill 

If such intelligences there be they are but what all 
might now be, had the race from its birth believed only 
in Good and rejected a belief in evil. 

Fear has darkened the soul, paralyzed the mind, 
weakened the body and filled the whole man with all 
manner of loathsome disease and with the seeds of 
death. We are a race of pigmies when we should have 
been a race of giants, and the devil is to blame for it, 
the devil who does not and never did exist. 

It is true what one of old taught, that man must 
give himself wholly to Good if he would be saved. Yet 
no one can do that who believes in the devil. To one 
who believes in the existence of evil a perfect faith in 
the omnipotence and omnipresence of good is im- 
possible. 

If evil exists then there is need to watch against its 
coming, and if there be need to watch then there is 
cause to fear, and he who fears evil can not trust 
wholly in the Good. 

The time will come when men, ceasing to fear evil 
through a recognition of the omnipresence of Good, 
will be freed from the debasing slavery of fear. 

Then, indeed, will they know "God" (Good) and be 
at one with Him. 



112 love: selfishness. 



LOYE: SELFISHNESS. 



CHAPTER XI. 

Love and selfishness have the same root. 

Selfishness is the claim for recognition of its indi- 
vidualized condition put forward by the individualized 
Ego conscious of its individuality. 

Love is the recognition by the individualized Ego of 
the indivisibility of the Universe. 

It is its recognition of the fact that it is but a portion 
of a whole; and that, while it possesses an existence 
as an individual entity, it is yet not separated from the 
whole, and that whatever affects the whole or any part 
thereof affects every other part, itself included. It is 
the spirit's perception of its oneness with the universal 
Life Principle. 

Selfishness is desire, born of ignorance of the law, 
for benefits to self regardless of, or detrimental to the 



love: selfishness. 113 

happiness of others. Love is selfishness awakened to 
the knowledge that seeming benefits are only such in 
fact when shared with others. It is the recognition 
of the "I" of its own indissoluble connection with 
every other "I" and with the source of all things. 

The recognition may be very imperfect, may indeed 
be an intuitive recognition, rather than one clearly 
-defined. 

There appears to be such a thing as unconscious 
consciousness, if I may use a seemingly contradictory 
phrase. Impressions, information, knowledge of truth, 
come to every soul, and like Will are either stored, or 
pass out because there is no insulation of that into 
which it flows. Often, there remains some portion of 
truth with the individualized Ego not immediately 
recognized, or not clearly recognized, but always seek- 
ing to become so. 

It prompts to action even when no consciousness of 
its presence, or but a very dim one, exists with the 
individual prompted. When action resulting from 
such promptings appears to us to have been wise we 
say, "It came of intuition." We say, "The person had an 
intuitional perception of the truth" or, "The knowledge 
was intuitional." 



114 love: selfishness. 

It is this intuitive knowledge of its indissoluble 
connection with the whole, which transforms selfish- 
ness in the individual into love. Love is self desiring 
to please that portion of itself which it recognizes as 
existing in another. 

The intuition may be weak, the recognition by the 
Ego, of its relation to other Egos and to the Whole 
may be very imperfect and love extend to but a small 
portion of the Whole; but to a few persons or things; 
but however circumscribed or limited it may be, it is 
to that extent a recognition of the indissoluble con- 
nection between that individual Ego and all other 
Egos, and of the Whole. 

Love is essentially selfish. It cannot possibly be 
otherwise, for it is an element of selfhood, and is possi- 
ble only to such expressions of the Universal Life as 
have become sufficiently individualized to recognize 
their wants. 

It cannot be an attribute of the Universal Life for It 
has no wants. It is conscious neither of pleasure nor of 
pain. It is without desire save only that form of desire 
which is necessity — the necessity of giving expression 
to itself. 

But the moment that an expression of the Universal 



love: selfishness. 115 

Energy becomes conscious of its own individuality that 
moment it becomes conscious of having wants. 

It wants space in which to exist; wants room in 
which to expand and grow, wants food to nourish it, 
and as it becomes still more individualized it becomes 
conscious of a new impulse — it loves. 

Heretofore its desires have been wholly disconnected 
from any thought of others. Xow its desires have 
expanded to include others. Then it desired to receive 
good directly in its own person. Xow it asks that 
good come to it through others. 

It has awakened to a consciousness of its relation to 
other parts of the whole, to other entities. It can no 
longer be happy of itself; it must obtain a portion of 
its happiness through others. Its desire is still for its 
own happiness, but it can no longer be happy except 
the whole of which it is a part, is happy. 

Or if not the whole then that portion of the whole 
with which it recognizes its connection. For the whole 
is composed of parts, and as the blood in the human 
body pulses through every member of the body so that 
no one portion can be said to be quite healthy while 
another is consumed with disease, so no individualized 
Ego can be perfectly at ease while any other member 
is diseased. 



116 love: selfishness. 

Love is the reaching out of the individual Ego to- 
wards itself in others. 

It is the longing of the body for rest in its members, 
or of one member for rest in all. 

It is selfishness in the higher plane of Being recog- 
nizing the extreme foolishness of selfishness upon the 
lower plane. 

That in the Universal Life which, though wholly 
for self, yet compels it to give of itself in order that 
it may find itself, evoluted in the individual Ego into 
love is still compelled to give in order that it may en- 
joy- 

Upon a less metaphysical plane of expression the 
fact that love is but selfishness grown wise is, I think, 
readily perceived. 

We love another, and because of that love we say we 
sacrifice this pleasure or submit willingly to that loss 
in order to give that other person pleasure or prevent 
him or her from sustaining loss. Yet where we ex- 
amine closely into our motives we find that not to have 
done as we did would have caused us to enjoy less 
pleasure than to do it. 

We are generous and give to one in need that which, 
if the need had not existed, we could have expended 



love: selfishness. 117 

to please ourselves alone; but at the last analysis we 
find that since the call to give was made upon us, not 
to have given would have caused us greater loss of 
pleasure than to give. Unconsciously, or without 
putting it into words, we recognize our connection 
with another part of ourselves, another member of the 
body of which we also are one of the members, and 
have given ease to it in order that its dis-ease might no 
longer cause a lack of ease in us. That other to which 
we gave is a part of a whole of which we also are a 
part, and love for it was but love of self. 

"Love thy neighbor as thyself," takes on a new 
meaning when seen in this light. 

We cannot possibly love another as we love ourselves 
unless we recognize him as a part of ourselves. 

The very essence of selfhood, of individuality, is love 
of self; a desire to gratify wants which do not exist 
outside of a self conscious existence. 

Self wants. 

An entity but little individualized, as a rock, a shell, 
a crystal, has no wants because it has no consciousness 
of an existence apart from the Whole. 

But a tree has wants, and it reaches out its branches 
and asks the sun and the rain and the dew to satisfy 



118 love: selfishness. 

them. It sends its roots down into the earth in search 

of that which will satisfy its want of nourishment. 

And the tree loves; it loves at least itself; it loves 
to live and clings to life. 

Break its roots and it sends out other roots. Denude 
it of its branches and it sprouts other branches. 

It flowers, and its blossoms lift up their heads and 
plead for fructification that the life of the tree may 
be continued through its seed when it can no longer 
maintain its own individual existence in its present 
form. 

The tree loves and through its pistils and its stamens 
gives hint of its unconscious recognition of its citizen- 
ship in a universe of the Whole. 

Animals love, not their mates alone or their offspring, 
but in a degree varying in different individuals and 
different orders others of their order and of other 
orders. 

Human beings love, and in proportion as they rec- 
ognize the u Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood 
of man 11 in that same proportion do they love all things. 
For love is the recognition of just that relationship 
between the Universal Ego and a single expression of 
it; is the recognition of the fact that we are one with 



love: selfishness. 119 

the Law of life and one with our neighbor; one with 
all things that are; and that perfect peace, perfect 
ease, perfect happiness cannot come to us save it come 
to others also. 

When men shall have learned how great a truth this 
is then will all unholy strife cease among the children 
of men, for all will do unto others as doing unto them- 
selves. 



120 THE VALUE OF THE NEW FAITH. 



THE VALUE OF THE NEW FAITH. 



CHAPTEK XII. 

I cannot close this series of essays without a word 
regarding the value of these new ideas; new, yet old; 
ideas so new to the many that they have not yet con- 
sidered whether or not they shall accept them as being 
true, yet, dating from their first acceptance by think- 
ing men as old, aye, older, than any written history of 
of the race. 

He whom men call the Christ taught them. But 
centuries before theNazarene publicly proclaimed them 
from the temple, or quietly instructed his disciples re- 
garding them as they traveled the dusty highways, or 
sat at rest beneath the trees in Palestine, Buddha 
taught them. 

Whether Jesus gained knowledge of them through 
missionaries or merchants who came to Palestine from 



THE VALUE OF THE NEW FAITH. 121 

the farther East, or whether great thoughts and 
glimpses of the divine truth came to him in the silences, 
flowing in upon a mind and heart open to receive them 
is of no consequence to us. Not the slightest. 

Neither is it of use to speculate as to how or why a 
knowledge of the truth never came to the great mass 
of those who constitute the human race, save as know- 
ing the obstacles that prevent a spread of the light we 
may be the better able to remove them. 

Ignorance is at the base of all things which men 
call evil. 

Ignorant men thinking themselves wise, thinking 
they can get good for themselves, get liberty for them- 
selves, peace and pleasure and happiness for themselves 
by denying like good to others, scheme and work and 
combine among themselves for that purpose. 

It was unquestionably a combination of political 
and ecclesiastical forces or elements that planned and 
finally effected the killing of Jesus, for he taught both 
m political and a spiritual economy, each equally obnox- 
ious to the ruling elements in the political and com- 
mercial, and in the theological world. 

Recognizing the existence of matter as apparent to 
the senses, and of man's physical relation thereto, he 



122 THE VALUE OF THE NEW FAITH. 

sought to teach men how to so use the lower as to make 
it a stepping stone to the higher life; declaring all 
men and women to be entitled to equal opportunities, 
and denouncing as a violation of the economic and 
moral law certain practices and customs by which the 
masses were kept in poverty and ignorance; and so do- 
ing offended both church and state, the politician and 
the creedist; those whose fields were fertilized in the 
sweat of the poor man's brow, and those who wielded 
power and influence through appeals to the fears and 
superstitions of men. 

Then as now the great majority of men and women 
farmed out their right to think. 

The right of some to be better born than others was 
a part of the creed alike of church and state. The 
king was king by divine right; the priest was called by 
the voice of a personal God, and no man might dispute 
their right to rule and to teach and lead. 

Moses had led out of bondage and made a mighty 
nation of a race, that, at the exodus must have exceeded 
in besotted ignorance and superstition, the negroes of 
the Southern States at the time of their emancipation. 

He had taught them a knowledge of certain economic 
laws and of how to so take advantage of them as to en- 



THE VALUE OF THE NEW FAITH. 123 

rich themselves at the expense of every people with 
whom they came in contact, and had declared to them 
that these laws were from God, and given to them as a 
specially favored people whom God wished thereby to 
give an advantage over others. 

So long as they observed those teachings and re- 
frained from preying upon each other, the Jews in- 
creased in wealth and power as in numbers. It was 
largely their knowledge of economic laws that made 
them great as a nation; it is the same knowledge that 
has preserved them great as a people through centuries 
of persecution. 

Himself a Jew and instructed in Jewish law and 
wisdom, Jews understood and appreciated to their fullest 
the value upon the physical plane, of the economic 
laws of Moses; but, whereas Moses had prescribed rules 
of conduct and taught laws of political economy tend- 
ing to build up one race and nation largely at the ex- 
pense of all others, Jesus taught that all men were 
brethern: and that the law was equally applicable to 
all, thereby offending all who sought to gain wealth 
at the expense of their fellows, but especially so the 
Jews who had been taught that as a favored people 
they were authorized by God to plunder others than 



124 THE VALUE OF THE XEW FAITH. 

Jews, and had learned through Moses the way in which 
it could be most easily done. 

The more selfish among the Jews had already vi- 
olated the law which forbade them from taking advan- 
tage of other Jews, and had long been in the habit of 
applying their knowledge of economic laws equally in 
dealing with Jew and gentile, and had suffered rebuke 
for it at the hand of their priests; but now came Jesus 
declaring that not only to the Jews, but to all men 
equally was the law applicable, which was equivalent 
to forbidding the over-reaching of the heathen in 
business, and was a virtual assertion that so much, at 
least, of the law proclaimed by Moses as permitted, 
was not from God. 

It is very little wonder that priest and people alike 
cried out for his life. 

He was condemning at once the teachings of the 
priests, and the practices by which the most wealthy 
and influential among the Jews added to their wealth. 

Neither is it surprising that after seeing him mur- 
dered they proceeded to nullify the effect of his teach- 
ings. 

Yet for some centuries a church organization was 
maintained that held with considerable closeness and 



THE VALUE OF THE NEW FAITH. 125 

tenacity to the truths which he taught. The spiritual 
or mental law of healing was observed and practiced, 
and the economic law enforced regarding the holding 
of land and the taking of usury (interest). 

But gradually a perception of the truth, together 
with the power which comes with such perception, 
faded from among them as the influence of the more 
wealthy and less spiritual increased, until finally the 
church ceased to be a teacher of either spiritual or 
ecomonic truth, and became instead the red-handed 
promulgator of a creed. 

Promulgator of a creed or creeds it is to-day; and 
if not red-handed it is because there is no longer 
strength in its right hand to wield the sword or heap 
fagots about the stake; and without this, and without 
the power which knowledge of the truth gives, it is 
fast sinking into the state of coma which precedes 
final dissolution. 

It will doubtless revive for a brief space before it 
finally expires, and make one fierce struggle for con- 
tinued existence; but, despising the truth, controlled 
by ideas of expediency, pandering to the rich, appeal- 
ing to the selfish interests, the fears and superstitions 
and hatreds of men, instead of searching for and de- 
claring the law, (which is love) it will fail. 



126 THE VALUE OF THE NEW FAITH. 

Already its days are numbered; its power for good 
departed; its value even as a kind of police force to 
hold the more ignorant members of society in check 
(for which purpose it is at present upheld by many 
who do not believe in its tenets) its value as a police 
force is virtually nil, and the next generation will 
witness its burial with scant ceremony and small con- 
course of mourners. 

To take its place and do the work it might have done 
comes the new old Truth with proclamation of a higher 
law of life and of living; of a grander future for the 
race, a nobler, purer and happier life for the individual; 
a life to be spent in freedom; not in a closed heaven 
from whose parapets the saved may watch the writh- 
ings of the lost what time they are not required to play 
the harp and sing songs of eulogy before a God of 
nature so low as to take pleasure in flattery and the 
abasement and suffering of his creatures; but made free 
through knowledge of the truth, and an existence of 
continued growth through truth to higher truths, 
through love to greater love, through obedience to the 
law to command of the law. 

For this new old Truth lifts men up, not upon the 
cross, but by the ladder which leads to heaven; lifts 



THE VALUE OE THE NEW FAITH. 127 

them up into a knowledge of their own worth; of 
their likeness in all things to the source whence they 
sprang — their likeness in power, in goodness, in possi- 
bility of greater knowledge. 

It applies to men the same rule of love by which 
our more enlightened instructors of children now seek 
to control and direct their pupils, in place of the rule 
of hate and brute force by which our schools were 
managed a generation or two ago. This latter rule 
was the logical outgrowth of a belief in a personal 
God, creator and ruler of the universe, who punished 
his subjects for failure either to hear of, believe in or 
abase themselves before him declaring themselves 
worms, himself worthy of endless praise even while 
he inflicted the most horrid of tortures upon the 
creatures of his own begetting. 

The Truth makes free, and freedom is beyond all 
price. It is what the political economists properly 
designate as "priceless;" its value is so great that there 
is nothing with which to compare it; for Truth is all 
there is and when we have Truth we have all. 

This is not a figure of speech merely. It is actually 
and practically a fact, that he who possesses truth, that 
is — understands the Law — may command (therefore 
possess) all things. 



123 THE VALUE OF THE NEW FAITH. 

That this is so is proven by the fact that in such 
proportion as we do understand the law or know truth 
we do command. 

By knowledge of the law of electricity we command 
the lightnings; by understanding acoustics we an- 
nihilate space and speak with friends a hundred miles 
away. 

The laws of electricity and of acoustics are no more 
knowable than the law of mental healing of the body, 
or the law by which matter may be dematerialized, or 
through which the consciousness may be in one place 
while the body remains in another. 

All things that are, are subject to law, and man as 
the highest expression of the law is rightfully master 
of all things below him, even the law itself, made so 
by his ability to understand and willingness to obey 
the law. 

There is nothing to which he may not rightfully 
aspire. That which in his ignorance of the way that 
leads to peace and happiness he now most of all de- 
sires — namely, to get wealth and honor and power at 
the expense of his fellow men — is the ball and chain 
preventing his more rapid progress. 

Know the truth, which is to obey the law, having 



THE VALUE OF THE NEW FAITH. 129 

faith in it and in yourself as an expression of the law, 
and all things else shall be added. Wealth, power, 
(over the lower forms of matter including your own 
body) peace, health, happiness, all these will come to 
all men in proportion as all men know the truth and 
live it. 

And sorrow and suffering: — even the agonies of the 
imaginary hell of the heathen Christians shall come 
to all men until they have learned the truth — come to 
them not as a punishment meted out by an angry God, 
but as the inevitable result of the breaking of the law, 
or a refusal to know truth ; not in condemnation for 
sin; but as the result of ignorance. 

To tread upon thorns, to eat of a poisonous fruit is 
not sin, but to learn of their effect through experienc- 
ing them is to choose a smoother path and more nour- 
ishing food. 

Not all of truth is known, nor ever will be. 

It is truth's greatest virtue, its feature of supreme 
beauty that it increases as our knowledge of it increases, 
just as. by increased power in the lens of a telescope 
do the heavens show forth a greater number of suns 
to our vision. 

All truth is knowable. But truth is also infinite. 



130 THE VALUE OF THE NEW FAITH. 

Only in proportion as we can comprehend the infinite 
can we know truth. There is nothing hidden, yet are 
our minds too weak to comprehend all. 

And if all truth were known to men there would 
come death to the race — for life is progress, advance- 
ment, growth. When there is no more room for 
growth there comes stagnation, and stagnation is death. 

We may not know all truth, but we can continue to 
glean truth from the field to which all are invited, 
of whose bounties nothing is reserved, and so gleaning 
we may continue to live and to grow — grow in wisdom, 
in beauty, in strength, in goodness, in an understand- 
ing of the law, in all things that can in any way add 
to our happiness. 

And these new old truths of which I have been 
writing point the way. I offer them as truths, but 
not as entire truth. 



Tt>e Blosson) o^ bt)^ Cer)burv. 
BY HELEN WILMANS. 



This is a Mental Science book. It is all about the possibilities 
of human power; the power vested in human development. It is 
at once a mighty revelation and a mightier prophecy. Such a 
book is inestimable in its capacity to unfold native mental ability 
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self trust. The absence of self trust is self defeat every time. Its 
absence is the curse of the race. It is neither poverty nor disease 
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Attractively bound in cloth. Price 81.00. Address Ada W. 
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Tl>eHoir)e Course 19 MepbalScieix-' 

— :o: — 
BY HELEN WILMANS. 

— :o: — 

The most essential thing I know of for the uplifting of humanity, 
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2. Thought, the Body Builder. 12. The King on His Throne. 

3. Our Beliefs. 13. Mental Science a Race Move- 

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4. Denials. 14. Mental Science Incarnate in 

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5. Affirmations. 15. Personality and Individuality. 

6. The Soul of Things. 16. "The Stone that the Builders 

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7. Faith, Our Guide Through 

the Dark. 17. A Noble Egoism the Founda- 

tion of Just Action. 

8. Spirit and Body are One. 18. Recognition of the Will the 

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10. The Power Behind the 

Throne. 20. Posture of the Will Man. 

The price of these lessons has been reduced from $25.00 to 85.00. 
Students have the privilege of sending 81.00 at a time and getting 
four lessons. Send for descriptive circular to 

ADA WILMANS POWERS, 
168 Humboldt Ave., Boston, Mass. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



021 095 470 3 



